NYT’s Editorial Board wrote a scathing editorial slamming Donald Trump’s hateful demagoguery
Today’s scathing editorial by the New York Times’s Editorial Board nails 2016 GOP Presidential contender Donald Trump’s hateful racist xenophobic demagoguery really good.
Here’s Donald Trump on Sunday: “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases. And we have no choice. We have no idea who’s being sent in here. This could be the — it’s probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time, where they come in.”
Here’s Joseph McCarthy in 1950: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.”
Here’s Donald Trump last Tuesday: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
Here’s George Wallace in 1963: “We must redefine our heritage, re-school our thoughts in the lessons our forefathers knew so well, in order to function and to grow and to prosper. We can no longer hide our head in the sand and tell ourselves that the ideology of our free fathers is not being attacked and is not being threatened by another idea … for it is.”
[…]
This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.
David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement:
The New York Times Editorial Board speaks directly for the Paper of Record. It generally addresses issues of great importance, and generally in a measured tone.
Today, the Times Editorial Board took Donald Trump to task, labeling him as a “demagogue” while detailing his “racist lies.”
Hayes asked Ellison specifically about why Trump would “essentially invent a conspiracy theory,” to which the congressman replied, “he’s whipping up hatred to scapegoat a minority religious group, which has some very dangerous historic precedents. It’s the kind of behavior, classic demagoguery, and he’s going to get somebody hurt.”
“What do you mean by that?” Hayes asked.
“When leaders who have a national platform whip up hate and hysteria against a particular group,” Ellison said, “particularly a minority religious group that is not popular — invariably, the people who are mentally unstable or motivated by hate come out of the woodwork and you see the desecration of buildings that are associated with that group, you see assaults, you see murders, you see things, things happen.”
Ellison is 100% right.
Back to the editorial: Señor Trump is a hateful racist xenophobic demagogue who is NOT going to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, but #MakeAmericaWorseOff.
Yesterday over at cross-town rival New York Daily News, an editorial there calls out Trump for the demagogic blowhard that he is:
Among the worst of his irresponsible accomplishments, Donald Trump is reviving the loathsome tactic of exploiting racial and religious animosities for political gain.
The Republican front-runner’s false claim about Muslims celebrating 9/11 and his wildly wrong assertion that most white murder victims are killed by blacks are a variant of the white-power racial stances that once kept Southern politicians in business.
[…]
A liar and demagogue, Trump is disgracefully, destructively trafficking in ideas befitting a skin-head while running for President.
Originally published at www.dailykos.com on November 24, 2015.
