When Donald Trump grows up (which, given his track record, doesn't look like it'll happen any time soon), he wants to be just like General John Pershing. In his final speech before the South Carolina primary, Trump regaled a crowd of supporters with the tale of Pershing, who allegedly used brutal, violent tactics to quash terrorism. (In truth, there's no evidence the story Trump referenced actually occurred—he probably picked it up from one of those chain emails.) He led into the story by first reinforcing his belief that torture is a totally appropriate way to deal with terrorists, beginning with waterboarding. "Is it torture or not?" he said. "It’s so borderline. It’s like minimal, minimal, minimal torture."
"You know, I read a story—it’s a terrible story, but I’ll tell you," he told the crowd of slavering supporters, who, of course, cheered. He went on to describe a "rough guy" (Pershing) who was fighting terrorists abroad in the early 1900s. "They had a terrorism problems, just like we do," he said, hinting the "terrorists" were Muslim by suggesting, "there’s a whole thing with swine and animals and pigs and you know the story, they don’t like that." The depth of understanding here is truly staggering. He went on:
And he caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage and killed many people. And he took the 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men and he dipped 50 bullets in pigs’ blood — you heard that, right? He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pigs’ blood. And he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said: You go back to your people, and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem. Okay? Twenty-five years, there wasn’t a problem.
According to Trump, America's governing body should aspire to Pershing-like action: "We better start getting tough and we better start getting vigilant, and we better start using our heads or we’re not gonna have a country, folks." Watch the whole horrifying speech below.
