If they were to call these very same people savages and animals on any other day, they'd be rightfully mocked and/or shunned for such blatant bigotry.
If you're going to call these people animals for their current behavior, you have to be quite comfortable with the idea that they are animals, always; not just different from the rest of us, but inferior. After all, a lion is no less an animal when it's resting in the shade of a tree than when it's tearing flesh from a fresh kill.
Christmas comes early for the bigots, if only because they feel they can publicly and gleefully express their bigotry.
ETA: There's a saying that people are revealed in crisis. I propose that people are also revealed in victory.