Trump’s spasm of hatred

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JENNIFER RUBIN

arabnews

On Monday, Donald Trump’s campaign put out a statement:

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on…

“Mr. Trump stated, ‘Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension....’”

A spokesman later clarified he meant all Muslims — presumably tourists, citizens, diplomats, soldiers and foreign leaders. (Later on a Fox News appearance, Trump suggested military personnel could return.) No one should have been surprised by Trump’s spasm of hatred. On Monday afternoon, a Monmouth poll showing him slipping to second place in Iowa came out. Trump’s narcissism, one can imagine, prompted him to wrench back the limelight, as he has done in the past when falling off the media radar screen. His favorite technique is appealing to anger, fear and bigotry. So we get the Muslim ban. But we should not be surprised for another reason. This past summer, as soon as he went after Hispanic immigrants as criminals, we knew he’d play the bigotry card whenever convenient.

The good news is that most of the GOP presidential candidates swiftly condemned his comments.

There were two notable exceptions. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would only say that Trump’s policy wasn’t his policy, and Sen. Rand Paul’s, R-Ky., spokesman ignored Trump, choosing to cite his own credentials. Maybe these two freshmen senators simply did not understand the moral implications of Trump’s proposal or lacked the courage to call him out, for fear of incurring a bully’s wrath. More likely, they — especially Cruz — are fishing for Trump voters, willing to tiptoe up to the anti-immigrant line just far enough, they hope, to entice some angry voters. Their lack of stature was evident. Cruz, who has been under fire for a phony “no amnesty” plan that is no different than other candidates (e.g., he’s unwilling to round up millions of people and deport them by force), was not about to put any more distance between himself and Trump.

Does any of this hurt Trum, or Cruz and Paul? Paul is already in low single digits, so he does not have far to fall. As for Cruz and Trump, even if their devoted followers — who are inured to or even supportive of the xenophobic appeals — are not going to be turned off, these two have capped their appeal. Beyond their core support, they have no sell. Mainstream and somewhat conservative voters outside the Trump crowd (disproportionately poorer with less than a high school education) are not going to join up with these two; unless Trump and/or Cruz can turn out hordes of previously non-voting Republicans, their upside in the race is limited.

Nevertheless, some soul-searching in many quarters — among Cruz and Trump defenders, right-wing media and right-wing moneymaking groups — is long overdue. In perpetuating a sense of betrayal and fanning the flames of conspiracy and know-nothingism, they create phenomena such as Donald Trump. Watching his rally in South Carolina, one could see how an audience becomes a mob. His audiences are not victims; they are participants in an ugly movement and should be held accountable for their — and his — rhetoric and actions. Republicans who know better made excuses for Trump for too long and failed to denounce him when he first singled out a group (Hispanics) for invective. They avoided scrutinizing his daft proposals and unintelligible declarations for months.

Mainstream Republicans need to assert themselves, wrest back control of the party and elect a respectable nominee. Cruz does not want to ruffle the feathers of the mob, but more responsible and principled Republicans should call on voters to be better, wiser and kinder than Trump. Otherwise, the 2016 election will be lost and (deservedly) the GOP will be on the brink of collapse.