Littwin: Trump didn’t give me a heart attack when he came to Aurora, but it sure felt like it

I woke up last Friday with chest pains, and my first thought, of course, was that the prospect of Donald Trump’s visit that day to Aurora had given me a heart attack.

I called my doctor, who agreed — about the possibility of a heart issue, I mean; I didn’t ask about Trump — and said I should immediately go to the emergency room. Which I did, if somewhat reluctantly.

After two days of tests, the chest pain turned out, thankfully, to be a false alarm. The state of my heart, if not the state of the union, is strong.

It seems that Trump’s visit only gave me a very bad case of heartburn. But I figure if the even-money chance that Trump could return to the White House isn’t giving you at least a little heartburn, you must not be paying attention.

And so I missed the speech. And even worse, being in the hospital, moving from one testing station to the next, I didn’t have the chance to write my Sunday column, which would have been, in one form or another, a commentary on Trump’s endless demonization of migrants and the city of Aurora.

Bashing migrants is a Trump staple, of course. But Trump has made it the centerpiece — sometimes it seems like the only piece — of his closing argument to the American voters, and especially to his base.

The economy is actually improving — The Economist reports that the American economy “has left other rich countries in the dust” —  and so Trump has chosen to return to familiar territory, a full-on embrace of racist, fascist demagoguery. (Don’t put the F-word on me. Put it on Gen. Mark Milley, who told Bob Woodward that Trump was “fascist to the core.”)

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I knew Trump’s anti-migrant speech would be, well, revolting. What I hadn’t foreseen, though, was that the Aurora speech would actually be important. In all the wrong ways, of course, but important nonetheless.

In the Aurora speech, Trump announced his intent to launch something called Operation Aurora, which he described as his plan to “rescue Aurora” and “liberate Colorado” and all the other places across America he says have been “conquered” by marauding hordes of migrant gangs.

Yes, there are gangs in Aurora, as there are in most, if not all, cities. No, they haven’t conquered even a single block.

And yet, Trump said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, which allows a president to remove those from enemy countries in times of war. If you’re not familiar with the Alien Enemies Act, it was a 1798 law that was written because of the possibility of an outbreak of war with, well, France and the chance that foreign nationals — or, you know, people from the other political party — would side with the French.

In fact, as explained in the National Archives, the “sedition” piece of the Alien and Sedition Acts — four laws that included the Alien Enemies Act — “made it a crime for American citizens to ‘print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous, and malicious writing’ about the government.” 

And yes, newspapers were shut down at the time, and a poor political columnist like myself might end up in prison.

The Sedition Act was revoked. But the Alien Enemies Act lives on. The last time it was invoked was during World War II with the mass internment of Japanese living in America, for the crime of being Japanese. That was not, you’ll recall, the high point of America’s commitment to civil liberties. In fact, it was one of America’s darkest chapters — the shameful story of Camp Amache still haunts Colorado — and one we’d surely never want to repeat.

Unless, of course, Trump is elected. And if he decides, as he has said, that the so-called invasion at the southern border is actually a war and thereby grabs those 18th-century powers for himself. 

Meanwhile, he describes America in ever darker terms as a hellscape.

Here’s what he told the packed Aurora crowd: “Kamala (Harris) has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens.”

Back in 2016, in more innocent times, when Trump had just been elected, there was an argument about whether to take Trump “seriously, but not literally” or “literally, but not seriously.” 

We know now we need to do both.

When Trump promises to round up and deport millions of unauthorized migrants — including those who came here as children and including those who have lived here for decades and including those who lived in “mixed” families — we should take him seriously and literally.

When Trump says that he, as our Protector, will rescue us from the migrant “scum” he calls “animals,” “stone cold killers” and the “most violent people on Earth,” we should take him seriously and literally.

You see, you start with the seeming criminals, while exaggerating greatly the numbers of criminals and the attendant violence. And so you claim that you “can’t buy a loaf of bread” without being mugged, that every day you run the risk that a migrant gang member will “cut your throat,” that Aurora is “occupied” territory,  that migrants are bringing “bad genes” to America, that they are “vermin” who are “poisoning our blood.”

Every day brings a new escalation. And now Trump speaks at every turn about “the enemy within” and the danger they present to America. 

It’s not always clear exactly whom he’s referring to as the enemy within, but sometimes he seems to be talking about violent migrant gangs and sometimes he’s talking about “radical left lunatics,” meaning your typical Democrat, and sometimes he’s talking specifically about California Rep. Adam Schiff, who was one of the managers of Trump’s first impeachment trial.

In an interview on Fox, host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump what he’d do if there was violence after the election — as if we didn’t know how Trump deals with election-related violence. He watches it play out on TV while violent hordes of Americans attack the Capitol as part of an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

But this question apparently referred to the danger from terrorists or, you know, violent migrants. 

“I think the bigger danger,” Trump told Bartiromo “is the enemy from within … sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”

Yes, Trump threatens to bring in the military to quell dissent. He has already threatened to use the military, if really necessary,  in deploying his mass deportation plan. 

What comes next?

Well, the one thing we know is that Election Day comes next. We’re less than three weeks out. The analysts say it’s a tossup.

And the pain you may be feeling in your chest? It isn’t necessarily a false alarm.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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