WaPo Repeatedly Called Trump & Republicans "Rats" & "Vermin"

Now They Won't Stop Comparing Trump to Hitler for Using Same Language

The Washington Post recently published a whopping eighteen articles—six of them just this week, comparing Donald Trump to Hitler because of the Republican Presidential candidates’ remarks comparing communists and fascists to “vermin”. WaPo explains that “vermin” is a term used by “authoritarians” to “dehumanize” and “encourage followers to engage in violence”. That’s interesting because, over the last several years, the Washington Post itself repeatedly called Trump and Republicans “rats” and “vermin”.

In 2019, when the Baltimore Sun editorial board called Trump a “vermin” (after Trump called their city a “rat and rodent-infested mess”), did the Post identify this as a dangerous “dehumanizing” call to violence? On the contrary, the Post called the Sun’s elementary school-level name-calling “brilliant”.

The Baltimore Sun brilliantly punched back at Trump, calling him the biggest rat of all.

The Post forwarded the notion, writing that, “the biggest rat is in the White House,” in a column titled, “The vermin in the White House”.

Post reporter Hannah Knowles also forwarded the Sun’s classification of Trump as “vermin”, quoting one of the Sun editorial writers who said classifying Trump as a “vermin” was an “inescapable conclusion”.

“We regularly mock some of the things [Trump] does, but I think to call the president of the United States a rat or a vermin . . . that’s a new place to go,” Sun editorial writer Peter Jensen, who rushed to the office on his day off to write the piece, told The Washington Post. “But my gut instinct as I was writing the editorial was that that was the inescapable conclusion.”

The Post didn’t just describe President Trump as vermin but Republicans in general—both those who supported Trump and those who didn’t.

In December 2020, WaPo published a cartoon depicting all Republican officials who supported Trump as disgusting evil rats.

WaPo depicted Trump’s Republican supporters in Congress as “Republican rats", even before they questioned the integrity of the 2020 election. In a 2019 illustration, WaPo cartoonist Ann Telnaes drew dozens of evil-looking red-eyed vermin titled, “Trump’s Republican rats”.

What about those Republicans who abandoned Trump after voting for him? Well, in 2018, Post opinion writer Dana Milbank called them “rats” too.

In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, WaPo dedicated an article to “Trump Rat”—a giant inflatable balloon depicting Donald Trump as a rat.

The “Trump Rat” article also featured several images of Trump as a rat, including a “Trump Rat” pencil sketch, and a “Trump Rat” digital rendering.

The “giant inflatable rat with his face attached,” was given shout-outs in the other Post articles as well, including the big-time WaPo investigation titled “Melania is booed while speaking to students in Baltimore”.

Even before Donald Trump was elected, the WaPo was calling Republicans rats. In a June 2016 column, WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin incorrectly predicted a loss for Trump, writing that “he has ‘loser’ written all over him”. Rubin didn’t stop there though, and also insulted Republicans not supporting Trump, calling them “rats” fleeing a sinking vessel. “No wonder the rats are fleeing the sinking Trump ship,” she said.

Later in August 2016, Rubin continued to falsely predict Trump would lose and label Republicans scared “rats”.

The rats, if not fleeing the sinking ship, surely do not want to be dragged under as Donald Trump continues to self-destruct.

In October 2016, Rubin referred to Republicans as “rats running from a sinking ship,” a third time.

Despite having previously authored three WaPo articles describing Republicans—her political opponents—as vermin, Rubin has now authored three WaPo articles condemning Trump for describing his political opponents in the same language. She declares Trump’s comments are “fascist,” “autocratic language”, and “straight from Hitler’s playbook”.

UPDATE #1: I found another WaPo cartoon, from 2018, depicting Republicans around Trump as “rats”, titled, “The rats are staying on the sinking ship”.

UPDATE #2: In 2018, WaPo highlights comedians “having a field” making fun of Trump, including Jimmy Kimmel calling Trump and his people “rats”.

Kimmel: “DJTJ, the president’s son, got in the fight. He went after Bannon, he called him a liar and a back stabber. The rats are finally eating their young is what’s going on here.”

UPDATE #3: In coverage of the 2016 election debates, WaPo referred to remarks from Hillary Clinton as “rat poison”, not so subtly suggesting her opponent Donald Trump is a rat.

As Clinton continued to sprinkle her rat poison through the course of the evening, Trump bit on every morsel until he looked very low-energy indeed.