The president named an ethnic community as the enemy and told Minnesota residents to fight back. His own post supplies the record.
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PORTRAIT, 2017 (PUBLIC DOMAIN)
President Donald Trump told Minnesotans to fight back against Somali immigrants in an October 8 Truth Social post. He described Minnesota as being taken over by that community, blamed it for statewide disorder and offered federal help. This was the president speaking to the public, not an anonymous account getting carried away in the replies.
Here is the instruction in his own words:
"The people of Minnesota must fight back."
The post ends by demanding that Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey request federal assistance. That is a demand for action, not proof that a new federal operation had been ordered. The distinction matters. So does the identity of the people Trump had already singled out.
He did not limit his accusation to a named defendant or a particular organization. The subject was Somali immigrants. A whole community became the explanation for a state's problems, and other residents were invited to see themselves as the people under attack.
I keep coming back to the word people. Somali Minnesotans are people in Minnesota, too. The rhetorical trick is to treat them as an outside force before the argument even starts. Once that division is accepted, the neighbors are a threat and hostility toward them becomes self-defense.
Crimes should be investigated. A specific criminal allegation needs evidence about the person accused. It does not become evidence against everyone with the same national origin. That rule is elementary enough that a president should not need a refresher, but here we are.
Reuters's reporting on the post places it in Trump's broader stream of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The wording here targets national origin. We need not guess the religion of every person he has swept into it to identify the collective blame.
Our April entry on Trump's remarks about Somali Americans records an earlier episode. October 8 adds something specific: an instruction to other residents to fight back, alongside the promise that Washington could come to their rescue.
There is a familiar premise behind this. An immigrant community is said to be taking over the place where it lives. We trace that idea in The Great Replacement dossier. Calling the premise familiar does not prove what any individual reader will do with it, and this article does not claim the post caused an attack.
It does mean the president is responsible for the choice he made. He could have called for the prosecution of identified suspects. He chose an ethnic group and an instruction to fight. Nobody has to wait for a casualty to object to that choice.
President Donald Trump told Minnesotans to fight back against Somali immigrants in an October 8 Truth Social post. He described Minnesota as being taken over by that community, blamed it for statewide disorder and offered federal help. This was the president speaking to the public, not an anonymous account getting carried away in the replies.
Here is the instruction in his own words:
"The people of Minnesota must fight back."
The post ends by demanding that Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey request federal assistance. That is a demand for action, not proof that a new federal operation had been ordered. The distinction matters. So does the identity of the people Trump had already singled out. …
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