A fired up Hillary Clinton addressed members of the Democratic Party at a dinner in Columbus, Ohio two days before the primary there, and issued a call to rhetorical arms for the battle against Donald Trump and his racist and bigoted presidential campaign.Clinton went on the record with some of her strongest comments about the reality star turned Republican presidential front runner, just two days after his violent supporters caused the cancellation of a campaign rally in Chicago. Donald Trump is running a cynical campaign of hate and fear, for one reason: to get votes,  she said.  He s encouraging violence and chaos to get votes. He is pitting Americans against each other to get votes. As the Washington Post reports, Clinton s comments mark a  sharp escalation  in the tone of the former Secretary of State s about Trump. And she wasn t done there. After stoking every fire he can think of, Trump encourages his supporters to beat up anybody who disagrees with him   literally punch them in the face   and then offers to pay their legal bills,  Clinton said.In 2012 when President Obama successfully ran for re-election in an atmosphere of right-wing demagoguery, he often told audiences who booed at the prospect of Mitt Romney becoming president,  don t boo, vote.  Clinton offered her version of the phrase in her speech: You and I know Donald Trump is not who we are,  she said.  Of course, we can criticize and protest Mr. Trump all we want. But none of that matters if we also don t show up at the polls. She added:  If you want to shut him down, then let s vote him down. Some observers have worried that Democrats are not turning out to vote in the primaries in the same numbers as Republicans have been, and wondered if that will spill over to the general election, where Democrats have historically had a slight edge in turnout over the Republicans. But Trump s comments and overall campaign tone seem to have energized the core Democratic voters   women and minorities   needed to take the party s nominee to victory.Coupled with recent, direct denunciations of Trump s harmful rhetoric from Bernie Sanders as well, the left seems  fired up and ready to go. Featured image via Flickr