Trump is the turd blossom that has grown from the GOP’s fertilization of their base with fear, hatred and racism to win elections. Essentially a minority party, the GOP has had to use demonizing and terrorizing to squeeze out the highest turnout possible for their party to support their elitist agenda which does nothing to help 99% of their voters.
In the 2004 elections, Dick Cheney and the Bush/Cheney campaign came right out and declared that if they were not re-elected, there would be another terrorist attack on America by Muslims.
In the 2008 elections, hatred had V.P. nominee Sarah Palin as an energetic cheerleader for core Republicans and America witnessed the ugliest display of open racism in a campaign and a party in recent memory.
In the 2012 elections, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan tried to whip up hatred of the “47%”/”Takers”, read “minorities” in campaign events and Donald Trump rallied racists in the GOP against Obama claiming his birth certificate was a fraud and made a bogus offer (quickly canceled) of $5 million if Obama released his college records…because of course, an educated black man had to be a fraud.
So it came as no surprise to many when this 2016 election cycle came along and bigotry was a core campaign tool of Republicans. However, no one imagined Trump would be a candidate let alone become the ultimate embodiment of Republican manipulation of their core using hatred based on race and religion.
The Establishment Republicans are apoplectic about these bigoted chickens coming home to roost but this is the monster they have built over many years. In truth, the monster isn’t actually Trump, it’s the Republican base that has been whipped up to believe that their bigotry is righteous and that the GOP is their only hope to protect them from the fear and hatred they feel towards Muslims, Mexicans, blacks, gays, independent women, etc.
It was their brainwashing of their base that began this and the GOP’s familiar obliviousness to what blowback is (see “Financing and Training Mujahadin in Afghanistan”, “Invasion of Iraq”, etc.) once again caused them to be taken by complete surprise. They never predicted that the bigoted base they intensified year after year wouldn’t just remain slavish rubes that they could push a fear button on to get their vote, they never foresaw that that base might grow to crave a nominee created in their own increasingly hateful image.
And now this has all has come to fruition in the candidacy of Donald Trump. Trump is just a magnifying glass for seeing the slimy nastiness that dwells in the depths of the Right Wing Republican soul. It is truly terrible but it’s not new, it’s been there through the centuries, through slavery (yes, they called themselves Democrats then but the parties were reversed back then), prejudice against different nationalities and religions, treating women as inferiors, etc.
Being a showman, Trump has elevated this hatred now to a nauseating height, announcing that as President he would stop all Muslims from entering the country. Now, anyone who has heard him declare other impossible and crazy things like building a giant wall on our southern border that he would make Mexico pay for by speaking magic words, would greet this insanity with a shake of the head. Of course he could never do this, just like every other BS promise he makes.
The difference here though is that he has adopted the rhetoric most Americans associate with enemies of America and its Constitution. Even for a Republican, that’s hard to describe as acceptable which is why a clear majority of Republicans have joined Democrats in assailing Trump for this latest and grandest bigotry.
Trump espouses a nationalistic policy that…trying as hard as I have to avoid this comparison in the past, heralds back to Nazi Germany. He announced his support for an impossible and unconstitutional policy of banning all Muslims from entering the country. He wants to force all Muslims to virtually sew a yellow emblem on their clothes, electronically tagged that is, so they can be easily detected, tracked and inspected wherever they are in the country at all times. He’s expressed support for sending Muslims to internment camps. This is the stuff of Nazi nationalism, demonizing all those who follow a specific religion, just substituting Muslims for Jews.
In doing this, he is attempting to sew a swastika onto the American flag. He drapes the word “Protection” over his horrible bigotry and the corrupt Right Wingers who show a blind, absolutist dedication to him, not dissimilar to supporters of fascists and dictators in other countries and history, might as well be returning a heil to him.
The good news though is that this is the moment when he went one goose step too far. The majority of the political world, both left and right and most of the media have stepped up to denounce Trump. He is now permanently too toxic to attract support to win in a general election…but the hateful GOP core may only be more enthusiastic towards him in the short term and he could at least win the GOP nomination on this platform of unAmerican bigotry…because it shows he’s an outsider and he isn’t PC (how crazy when being Nazi-like is okay to RW Repubs because it’s better than being politically correct which is much more evil than Nazis).
The GOP base wants their minds’ id represented in the leadership of their party and the nation. So while Trump’s motivation may be to punch up his poll numbers…at a moment when Ted Cruz began to overtake him in Iowa…this nuclear attack on America’s principles, Constitution and Muslim citizens is a poison pill in the end. He has lost the extreme longshot he may have had (though that was even unlikely) to ever win the Presidency but may have helped himself in the GOP race. As the saying goes, he may have won the battle but like the Nazis, he lost the war.
Though we haven’t seen such hateful ugliness so openly broadcast in a Presidential race in most of our lifetimes, it is important to remember that this fringe supporting him is very narrow and shallow. Trump and his bigotry is not reflective of America, it is reflective of a small sliver of Americans who are extremists…ironic considering how Trump smears all Muslims based only upon the small sliver of their extremists. In this way, the Republicans supporting Trump have far more in common with Muslims supporting ISIS than their fellow Americans.
Maybe we should insist the rest of the Republican candidates refer to Trump’s supporters as “radical Republican extremists”?
Man, I wish I had written this!
AdLib, you have captured the true essence of what this man is all about — what his movement is all about. He is modern-day Woodrow Wilson, who sees America in terms that roll back the clock to pre-Civil War times.
Trump’s swagger evokes both “The German” and his Italian counterpart — the strongman who can, by force of will, give the “others” a stern kicking. Such a leader has never been good.
I am hoping you are correct about his chances at election. But even in losing, he has unleashed a viciousness that, to me, is far more dangerous to Americans than ISIL.
Congratulations!! You are “the real deal”. If this wasn’t so disgusting, I would be laughing out loud because he will never live this down. Heil Trump!
This just proved your point beautifully, AdLib. The icing on the cake. Schadenfreude.
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Exclusive: US Neo-Nazi Leader Says Donald Trump ‘the Real Deal’
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Exclusive-US-Neo-Nazi-Leader-Says-Donald-Trump-the-Real-Deal-20151209-0019.html
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I hope this is just the beginning
“Dubai retail giant suspends sales of Trump products amid ‘Muslim ban’ furore”
http://m.arabianbusiness.com/dubai-retail-giant-suspends-sales-of-trump-products-amid-muslim-ban-furore-614696.html
Kalima, I think this used to be called “damning with faint praise.” This neo-Nazi leader dubbing Trump “the real deal.”
Kind of like Wayne LaPierre complimenting Dick Cheney on his accuracy and safety with a shotgun.
He even goes on to state that the Trump candidacy is “like a throwback to an earlier era.”
It sure is. The era of a KKK with hundreds of thousands of members? The McCarthy era? The Know-Nothing era? The George Wallace era?
There’s a series called “The Man in the High Castle” on Amazon and it describes what life would have been like had the Axis powers won WWII. Pretty grim stuff. But — after all — fiction.
Apparently Trump and his supporters would like us all to see if we can give that concept a trial run in real life. No thank you, Mr. Real-Except-For-My-Hair Deal!
😀
Hello Kes. If I were Mr. Noclassbigmouth, I would find the nearest big rock and climb under it after a vote of approval from that group of degenerates. The backlash from this has now gone international. Can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. The only thing you need to be the GOP front runner is to be crazier than the rest of them. He has won that race.
The number of signers has now passed the 300,000 mark. He now joins people like;
Be careful what you wish for.
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Trump UK ban petition passes 370,000 signatures
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35052505
Kalima, wow…it’s pretty much impossible to satirize or exaggerate Trump as a politician, he is so extreme, any jokes about him being a candidate for Neo-Nazis or an ally of ISIS are actually reality.
This will all work out though, he is so repugnant to all but the pro-fascist GOP base, he would destroy the GOP if he got the nom…so I’m hoping he does.
And Cruz is being talked up as his only likely competition, the results would be just as bad for the GOP.
Sometimes you have to hold your nose over the short term, knowing that in the long term the offensive things will be flushed away.
You have an uncanny way of predicting what insane people might do next. The fact that you are spot on about this piece of manure, is eerie. Fact is really often stranger than fiction but in this case, fiction/satire is fact.
Trump thinks his campaign is one of his shows. I read yesterday that if his poll numbers drop, he might leave the race. He believes 100% in those polls. Reading an article in WaPo the other day that confirmed that Trump’s supporters are under educated. As if we didn’t already know that. What the article didn’t say is that they are also racists and haters who have found their niche in Trumpdom.
What bothers me the most after the obvious vilifying of all Muslims is how hard President Obama has worked to rebuild international fences and America’s image after the Bush devastation, then to have this ignorant thug try to spoil the effort must be so frustrating. Not everyone around the globe knows or cares what is going on with U.S. politics. They hear “ban all Muslims from entering the U.S.” Can’t or won’t distinguish between the rambling of a vile exhibitionist or actual policy, and think that it’s real.
Yes, let him win the GOP nomination and wait for him and that awful party to explode.
Ad, all true all true.
I view Trump through a very slightly different lens.
He’s simply giving his supporters what they are telling him they want. That’s what a good salesman does. Does he mean it? Will it work? Is it right? Who cares. The people demand, he supplies.
Funk, I think what you say is true too. But if someone dresses up in a KKK hood just to get the KKK vote, are they not in the same boat?
While I agree that Trump probably doesn’t truly believe in most of the horrible things he says and is just using the bigotry, fear and hatred of the GOP core to his advantage, I don’t see any difference between Trump insincerely championing bigotry and sincerely doing so.
Either way he is a bigot and demagogue.
Ad, good post, again.
Trump is going to finish the job of destroying the republican party sooner than we could have hoped for. I don’t know anyone who supports him.
I do agree there would be a huge win for the dems if he did get the nom. But he wont.
Thanks Nirek!
If you don’t think Trump will get the nomination, who do you think is more likely? Cruz or Rubio? Sure doesn’t look like Jeb!, he’s still swirling the drain at around 5% in polls. Must say, I am getting a lot of satisfaction about that!
Ad, I too am smiling about Jeb swirling.
The republican party doesn’t seem to have a ligitimate candidate. It is impossible to predict who will get their nom. I just hope Bernie is the Dem Nom. Otherwise it will be the lesser of the evils.
I can hear it now. White House 2017 – the phone rings at 3.00 am. ‘Mr President, we have a situation in Pittsburgh” Trump:’ Everybody sing ‘Wir Fahren gegen USA’ and round up the usual Muslims!’
What an odious cretin this guy is.
And we’ll have a new national anthem then too:
“Trumpland, Trumpland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!”
AdLib, thanks so much for such a clear and timely statement of the truth about the GOP and the Trump candidacy.
I was really nauseated by Paul Ryan’s “way-too-little-way-too-late” statement rejecting Trump’s latest insane plan. There’s Ryan — daintily washing his blood-red hands and “tsk-tsk-ing” in ladylike horror — condemning the monster that he and the other Doctors Frankenstein in the Republican Party had been creating for years!
Puh-leeze.
Dalia Mogahed was a guest on the PBS NewsHour tonight. (She’s an expert on Islam in the US.) She said that — although this may seem quite counter-intuitive — anti-Muslim sentiment does not spike when there are violent episodes like the San Bernardino shootings of last week. It tends — instead — to spike during election cycles. She came right out and said that the GOP deliberately fans the flames of ethnic and religious bigotry in order to rally their base to turn out and win elections.
It was the most direct and blunt statement of that truth that I’ve heard to date. Until I read your excellent article!
Truth. Americans need to hear a lot more of it.
Cheers Kes!
Consider this though, despite all the condemnation from Repubs, none have come out to say they wouldn’t support him if he won the GOP nomination.
So calling Trump a bigot but being wiling to support him to take the presidency kind of disqualifies the appearance of criticism.
Trump is the best positioned candidate to win the GOP nod and the most toxic candidate destined to lose a general election by a huge margin.
I think that if we really want to defeat the bigots and pro-fascist anti-American Republicans goosestepping to Trump’s tyrannical proclamations, we really do need Trump to win the GOP nom and be destroyed in the General Election. The extremists/Tea Party’s hold on the GOP will be broken after their candidate blows up the GOP.
As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. So let’s hope the human bacteria powering Trump’s poll numbers come out with him to show themselves to the nation with him as the GOP candidate so they and their insanity can all be taken down by the nation…and thus discouraged from being repeated in following elections.
Nothing is copied more than success and nothing is abandoned more than failure. And watching Trump crushed on election day would be pretty damn sweet! The guy who always brags about what a winner he is, shown up to be one of the biggest losers in history? All the PR he may have thought he was getting from this campaign will be shredded. How often do you see failed candidates in the media after they lose? The just desserts for Trump would be winning the nom, losing the GE “yugely” then becoming a pariah that neither the GOP or the American public wants to see again.
You know, AdLib, I’ve been wondering the same thing, but didn’t want to actually put the words: “It might be for the best if Trump won the nomination” into print! (Maybe I’m superstitious.)
I have thought this as well. Since he actually does represent the way a lot of the GOP base thinks/feels, let him go out there and preach it.
Then let him go down in a blaze of inglory.
Kes, I appreciate the concern there is if Trump is one election away from becoming President but he can’t win. It’s just not possible. Indies won’t vote for him, women won’t, blacks won’t and what’s key is that he can’t win a GE without around 40% of the Latino vote no matter what and that will never happen.
Trump is a poison pill for the GOP and I sure hope they swallow it.
Agreed that having Trump become the GOP candidate is a bit of a gamble, AdLib. But as you say, it’s one that progressives are likely to win.
And when the GOP loses, it will be in a truly spectacular way.
I think I’m more worried than you, Ad. He’s polling at 30%. So if GOPers are 30% of the populace, that’s 15% of the voting populace revealing themselves as fascists. Okay that doesn’t sound so bad, except that the Cruz supporters are the same, and I think the Rand supporters are also probably the same. Oh yeah, and the Hucklebee supporters and probably a good number of the Rubio supporters. Oh, I forgot — didn’t Jeb say we only want Christians to come in or something like that?
I don’t think we have the economic turmoil to create a Germany in the 1930s, but if we had another financial meltdown coupled with jihadist terrorism, with a liberal president who doesn’t fix it immediately….
These Trump supporters scare the shit out of me. I don’t want them for my neighbors.
escrib, this should make you feel a little less worried, 30% of 30% is actually 9% of American voters embracing that maniacal fascist Trump…which leaves 91% of voters not supporting him.
The approximate total percentage of GOP voters who support “outsider” GOP candidates is around 50% so that would be 15% total of the voting public. And many of these voters have said in polls that they would never vote for Trump.
The more moderate Repubs supporting the “insiders” are mostly anti-Trump in their sensibilities. There’s a reason why Trump can’t break out past a ceiling of high 20’s to low 30’s in the polls, that’s the most support he can muster out of the GOP.
As far as how scary the Trump supporters are, I’m right with you. I can imagine them shopping online for their Trump armbands and brown shirts. But as I mentioned in the article, these racists and bigots have been around since the US was founded, it’s just that nowadays, thanks to the GOP’s stripping of any conscience or decency, they feel free to openly display their bigotry and love of white fascism.
The KKK, neo-Nazis, abortion-doctor-killing Christian extremists, anti-government paranoid militias and terrorists have unfortunately been around for a long time. They’ve just got a reality show now to guest star in, “Donald Trump’s WHO WANTS TO BE A DISGUSTING BIGOT?!”