The carnival of reaction that is the preposterously over long US presidential election period rolls on and on. The Republican candidates seem to be doing their best to outdo each other to find out who can will the most terrible people around.
Religious fanaticism and the legacy of the Tea Party movement have united to bring some very dangerous extremism to the fore. His rallies have become rabble-rousing hate-fests focused on scapegoating sections of those society already most marginalised and discriminated against. Trump’s call to ban all Muslims from the US is the most infamous example.
While there’s no doubt that fear mongering and race-baiting have played an important part in gathering Trump’s bases of support, an important long article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling StoneFebruary noted that those racist themes “comprise a very small part of his usual presentation. His speeches increasingly are strikingly populist in their content.”
Read more over at MEMO.