Trump, Fox News are stoking hate in the U.S.

Atwater and Ailes premised their careers on fear and hate. Ailes’ Fox News monetized fear and hate through phantom menaces like a “terror mosque” near Ground Zero, Barack Obama’s alleged connections to black nationalists and Muslims, and Sarah Palin’s fictitious “death panels.”

Trump took Atwater and Ailes to their logical extremes: building a political base by suggesting that Obama wasn’t born in America, launching his presidential campaign by warning of “criminals” and “rapists” streaming across the border, and ending his campaign with an ad suggesting that prominent Jews — billionaire George Soros, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen — were in league with Hillary Clinton to control the world.

Since taking office, Trump has ramped up fear and hatred — toward immigrants, journalists, black athletes who won’t stand for the national anthem, major media and prominent Democrats.

Fox News has magnified the fear and hate exactly as its founder would have wanted. A guest on Lou Dobbs’ Fox Business Network show claimed the caravan was being funded by the “Soros-occupied State Department.”

Soros was among the targets of pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and members of the media last week. A Florida man who identifies himself as a Trump supporter was arrested in connection with the attempted bombings.

Hours before a gunman entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 worshippers Saturday, he reportedly wrote that a Jewish organization for refugees “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Bombs mailed to political leaders. Threats against the media. A shooting in a place of worship. None were directly ordered by Trump or his propaganda affiliate. They didn’t have to be.

Trump’s demagoguery inspired it. Fox News magnified it.