“He Doesn’t Know Asylum Can Mean Two Things” — Anti-Trump TikToker Comments on Hannibal Lecter References
"Kinda like ‘whales’ and ‘Wales.’"
Published July 27 2024, 3:00 a.m. ET
In yet another round of political discourse that has nothing to do with national policy, TikToker Mrs. Misanthrope (@mrsmianthrope2) reveals that she believes she knows why President Donald Trump is constantly referring to Hannibal Lecter in his speeches, which she posted about on the popular social media application.
"The Hannibal thing explained," she writes in a text overlay of the video before getting into her thoughts on why former president Donald Trump repeatedly references the fictional character, Hannibal Lecter.
The TikToker says, "I saw a comment online and I have to share it with you guys. I think it cracks the code as to why, for the past several months, every single time Donald Trump is in front of a group of in front of an audience, and he's riffing, and he brings up immigration, he references Hannibal Lecter."
She believes that he mentions Hannibal Lecter because Lecter, the fictional character, is associated with "insane asylums." And "asylum" is a word that Trump possibly conflates with the issue of immigration. The idea of "asylum" seekers, Mrs. Misanthrope argues, is one that creates a mental connective bridge with Donald Trump for that reference.
She thinks that Trump pointed to Hannibal Lecter as a means of fear-mongering around the issue of immigration.
She referenced someone else's X post that theorized that Trump was unaware that the word "asylum" has separate meanings. "Could explain why he thinks political prisoners claiming asylum from Venezuela are being emptied out of insane asylums," X user @theJan6plaque wrote.
"Why does he always say 'the late, great Hannibal Lecter' like he’s an actual person?" a commenter wrote. In addition to the confusion about the word "asylum," it also seems like Trump may not realize that Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character written by Thomas Harris, brought to life on the movie screen by Anthony Hopkins, who, as another commenter pointed out, is still alive.
"How soon until he’s talking about Batman fighting bad guys in Arkham Asylum?" another commenter wrote.
"You would think that his team would advise him to drop the Hannibal Lector thing," said another. Truly! Something tells me that Trump doesn't always take his team's advice, though.
"Sadly, this makes all the sense in the world," another person wrote.
Listen, the 2024 election season has been a wild ride so far. Trump seemingly referring to Hannibal Lecter as a real person in conjunction with the topic of immigration because he might think there's only one use for the word "asylum" is like, the 10th most unbelievable thing that's happened. Seems like we're in for quite a journey leading up to November.
