Trump’s toxic pitch
Donald Trump’s toxic anti-Muslim bigotry sounds like madness to most Canadians as we open our doors and hearts to 25,000 Syrian refugees.
But it is the coldly calculated madness of the leading Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, who is shrewdly and deliberately capitalizing on the politics of nativism and fear of foreigners that his party has indulged in for years. This is a dark moment for Republican moderates. Americans have twice elected Barack Obama, their first black president, and a man who preaches tolerance and diversity every chance he gets. Do Republicans imagine that people are so utterly traumatized by the Islamic State-inspired terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that they are prepared to consider electing a huckster like Trump, who disavows the country’s founding principles and cynically exploits hatred? That has suddenly become a defining issue in the run-up to next year’s presidential race.
Trump is a celebrity narcissist who has made bullying bombast his trademark. But by demanding “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” on the weekend, he has shown himself to be a rank bigot, manifestly unfit to lead a country that traces its foundation to being a refuge for Puritan Christians who fled England to practice their faith freely.
Worse, his Republican rivals’ muted response to his Islamophobic pitch has many Americans questioning the party’s fitness to govern. The public already views the Republican party negatively, and most feel that Trump’s views will further hurt the brand.
This isn’t the first time Trump has appealed to racism to dominate the news cycle, stir up his white, lower-middle-class base, and put rivals on the spot. He created a furor when he threw his hat into the race, by dismissing Mexican migrants as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists.” By now his slurs are legion. “My whole life is about winning,” he says. And if that means demonizing Mexicans, Muslims or whoever else happens to irritate his voter base in the party race, he’s up to the job.
Even more discouraging is the Republican party’s obtuse reaction. Despite their party’s unpopularity in the polls, nearly twothirds of likely Republican primary voters agree that the doors should be shut on Muslims. Sensing trouble, Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan were quick to reject the idea as “anti-American,” and Trump’s chief rivals, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, disavowed his views. Jeb Bush even called him “unhinged.” But none urged him to quit the race.
If Trump has finally gone too far, many Republicans appear not to care. That too says something about the party’s increasingly infirm grip on reality.
U.S. Republican presidential frontrunner’s bigotry is a dark moment for the country