Donald Trump's call for "really violent day" compared to 'The Purge'
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for "one really violent day" to crack down on shoplifting, drawing comparisons to The Purge and to Kristallnacht in 1930s Germany.
The Purge is a film franchise in which one day every year all crimes are legal. Kristallnacht was a series of Nazi-orchestrated mob attacks against Jewish people and businesses in 1938.
Speaking at a Sunday rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, former President Trump said that police needed one violent day to restore order.
"What the hell is going on?" he said. "See, we have to let the police do their job [crowd cheers]. And if they have to be extraordinarily rough [crowd cheers louder]. And you know, the funny thing with all of that stuff, look at the department stores, same thing, they walk into it. You see these guys walking out with air conditioners, with refrigerators on their back. The craziest thing. And the police aren't allowed to do their job. They're told if you do anything, you're gonna lose your pension, you're gonna lose your family, your house, your car.
"You know, if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day," he said, during a section of the speech about how left-wing politicians are allegedly preventing police from enforcing the law, "one rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it'll end immediately."
Trump's campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek that Trump's remarks reinforced his position as a law-and-order candidate.
"President Trump has always been the law and order President and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws," Cheung said. "Otherwise, it's all-out anarchy, which is what Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, especially during her time as CA Attorney General when she emboldened criminals."
Critics on social media were quick to compare Trump's suggestion to The Purge, a fictional event from a dystopian film franchise where all crimes, including murder, are legal for 12 hours.
Harris-supporting user @ArmandDoma, co-founder of YIMBYs for Harris, an affordable housing-focused Kamala Harris fundraising group, posted on X: "Trump is literally proposing The Purge lmao."
Another user @krassenstein, a prominent pro-Harris and Trump-critical influencer, wrote: "Did Trump just f—king suggest 'The Purge'? Trump implies that his idea for stopping crime is to allow for 'one really violent day... I mean real rough..."
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said undecided voters would not be persuaded to vote for Donald Trump, because while many of them may think Harris is soft on crime, they often dislike Trump's rhetorical style.
"This is critical, voters, these undecided voters don't like how Donald Trump talks but they do agree with him on many of the most important issues," Luntz said on CNN Sunday. "They approve of Harris' approach of focusing on the future, but they question her on issues like this, whether she's strong enough and tough enough."
"So the rhetoric is not effective, but focusing on the issue is, and that's why they're still undecided voters. Because, quite frankly, they don't want to vote for either candidate. What I tell people in speeches is the good news, we're gonna be done with all of this and in less than 40 days, the bad news is that one of these candidates has to win. This is the frustration for undecided voters. They like the policies of one candidate and they prefer the persona of the other candidate."
Another user, @jimstewartson, a frequent critic of Trump and the MAGA movement, went further, and drew a comparison to Kristallnacht, due to the violence Trump suggests being state-sponsored, rather than citizen-on-citizen violence like in The Purge, writing on X:
"In PA today, Donald Trump gave one of the most dangerous speeches of the 21st century by describing his strategy for reducing crime as Kristallnacht. I've seen this described as 'The Purge' which is wrong. That was a movie where the population was set against itself. This is the description of state-sponsored widespread violence. It actually happened."
After the speech, "The Purge" was trending on X for 11 hours.
The Nazi-orchestrated Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," was a wave of violent attacks against Jewish people throughout Germany and Austria on November 9 and 10, 1938, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Jewish people, businesses, homes, houses of worship, schools and cemeteries were attacked, vandalized and desecrated during the pogroms, or organized massacres of a particular ethnic group.
Nearly 100 Jews were killed and many more were injured during Kristallnacht, while more than 7,000 Jewish businesses and hundreds of synagogues were destroyed, according to the ADL. Additionally, 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
However, some Trump-supporting accounts disputed the comparison to Kristallnacht, including @jpksilver, who wrote, "Apparently Kristallnacht is trending because miseducated twerps think jews and shoplifters are the same," and @ScandinavianBot, who wrote, "WTAF? I listened to the whole thing waiting to hear him say "kristallnacht." He never did. Seems YOU are implying Jewish people are criminals with this tweet. Gross."
Another user, @backtobackdawgs, said their parents and grandparents lived through Kristallnacht, and they agreed with Trump that there needed to be a crackdown on crime. They wrote on X:
"I'm a child and grandchild of Kristallnacht. I fully comprehend its meaning. He's not wrong. We live in a time where people break laws routinely. No one does anything, DA's reduce charges or release criminals repeatedly. Never-ending crime. Don't be naive as to what needs done."
Trump said the single day of violence was necessary to restore order, due to the police being allegedly unable to prevent shoplifting due to an alleged policy he alleged Kamala Harris enacted as District Attorney of San Francisco: that it is legal to shoplift goods valued under $950 in California.
"You can steal whatever you want. You can go away, but you'd see, originally you saw kids walk in with calculators. They were calculating. They didn't want to go over the $950," Trump said. "They're standing with a calculator adding it up. You know, these are smart, smart people. They're not so stupid, but they have to be taught."
This claim is false. In California, stealing less than $950 of goods is against the law, but is charged as a misdemeanor, not a felony.
Shoplifting is punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of $1,000. The law to charge shoplifting as a misdemeanor rather than a felony, called Proposition 47, was enacted in 2014, not by Harris, who was attorney general at that time, but rather by the state's voters in a referendum. They voted in favor of the proposition 59 percent to 40 percent.
According to data from the California Department of Justice, shoplifting rates increased slightly for a year after the proposition was passed, and began to decrease from 2015. As of 2022, the shoplifting rate has not returned to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
Update 09/30/24 12:32 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Trump's campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
