Donald Trump, at his rally in New Jersey, used an extended riff about the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs” to demonize migrants at the border.
  • mozz
    4•6 months ago

    He didn’t liken migrants to Hannibal Lecter. It’s a little hard to tell exactly what he meant, but what he said was that he was a wonderful man, and then he called him the late great Hannibal Lecter, and then he told him congratulations. Saying foreign countries are sending Hannibal Lecters into our country is one interpretation but honestly who knows.

    Here’s the video; the relevant part of the transcript in context is:

    Venezuela just announced and it had a new number was 67 now it’s 72% 72% they’re down in crime because they took their gangs their gang members they took a lot of their criminals and they moved them into the United States of America jail populations all over the world are way down and these fools back there the press the fake news they don’t want to report it you know why they’re down because they’re sending people in their jails into the United States from Africa from Asia from all over the world they’re emptying out their jails into the United States they’re emptying out their mental institutions into the United States our beautiful country and now the prison populations all over the world are down they don’t want to report that the mental institution population is down because they’re taking people from insane asylums and from mental institution you know what the difference is Right an insane asylum is a mental institution on steroids Silence of the Lambs has anyone ever seen Silence of the Lambs the late great Hannibal Lector he’s a wonderful man he often times would have a friend for dinner remember the last scene excuse me I’m about to have a friend for dinner as this poor doctor walked by I’m about to have a friend for dinner but Hannibal Lector congratulations the late great Hannibal Lector we have people that are being released into our country that we don’t want in our country and they’re coming in totally unchecked totally unvetted and we can’t let this happen they’re destroying our country and we’re sitting back and we better damn well win this election cuz if we don’t our country is going to be doomed it’s going to be doomed so I took hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and taxes and fees from China and other countries also not just China everyone rips us all of them the European Union is brutal they all are brutal because they were dealing with people that didn’t care they had no business bent they were politicians that didn’t want to rock the boat European Union treats us very badly they learned they learned we did a lot of things with them uh Macron of France good guy’s a friend of mine but he loves France and he was going to put a tax on All American Business a very substantial tax 25% on American businesses in France and my people went I gave it to Steve Mnuchin

    • @eatthecake
      1•6 months ago

      I think he was using hannibal lecter as an example of someone in an insane asylum. He seems to be a fan of the cannibal though so it’s quite confusing.

      • mozz
        3•6 months ago

        Yeah. You could say he’s being sarcastic when he praises Lecter, and his actual point is that some of the people that countries are “sending” the to US, as part of their government immigrant-sending programs apparently, are cannibals. But that is also an insane thing to say so it’s really hard to tell.

        I think his brain is just falling apart and he didn’t care much in the first place whether what he says had any connection to reality, and so this is the kind of thing that falls out.