Since the 1950s, the GOP has repeatedly mined fear, resentment, prejudice, and grievance and played to extremist forces so the party could win elections. In my book American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy, I lay out this sordid history in great detail.

But even a highlight reel makes it clear that the GOP has bowed to, depended on, and promoted far-right extremists and conspiracists for the past 70 years. Trumpism is the continuation, not a new version, of Republican politics.ĭwight D. Eisenhower surrendered to Joe McCarthy on a train. In October 1952, Ike, the heroic World War II general who nabbed the GOP presidential nomination running as a moderate, was campaigning in Wisconsin with the nation’s No. Two years earlier, Wisconsin’s junior senator had claimed he possessed a list of 205 Communist Party members “working and shaping policy” in the State Department. TRUMPS CULT ANIMOSITY SHOWS LETTING FREEīut McCarthy helped trigger a national panic over supposed commie infiltration and became a powerhouse within the GOP.One man said he admired her for “not getting caught.” The one person who had a kind word for Clinton told me “she was a fighter and she didn’t quit,” which is almost precisely what Trump said about her at the debate on Sunday night. I asked every person I met if there was one thing they liked or admired about Hillary. “Hillary is a liar” “she’s crooked” “she’s in it for money.” They regurgitate back to me every conspiracy theory that Trump has promulgated about the Clintons - Benghazi, deleting her e-mails, acid-washing them, selling uranium to the Russians. When I asked about birtherism, I was immediately told, “Hillary did it first.” They parrot his talking points almost verbatim. He doesn’t really want to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, even though there is no indication that Trump has renounced that position.

He’s backed away from that, I was assured, even though the call for a total ban is still up on Trump’s website. Over and over I was told that Trump didn’t really mean it when he said he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. So much of what you hear from Trump’s core supporters is the kind of language you’d hear in describing wayward children - one excuse after another for bad behavior. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d just contradicted herself. “Clinton did those things.” Then she went on to criticize the women who would let Trump accost them. It became such a rote answer that I finally, exasperatingly, asked one woman how she could criticize Clinton’s behavior while at the same time excusing Trump’s. At one point, Trump brought up a young child dressed like him and then asked the little boy if he’d rather go with his “Daddy or Trump.” The little boy said “Trump,” an answer that, considering the cult of personality around the candidate, was cringe-inducing.īut almost without fail, every Trump supporter I spoke with brought up Bill Clinton and his allegedly more depraved behavior. He repeatedly labeled Hillary Clinton a liar, said she is as “crooked as a $3 bill,” and reiterated his call for her to be sent to prison. He professed his love for WikiLeaks and then read from some of the recent e-mails the group released and which the Russian government hacked in order to help Trump win. And then there is Trump’s dark, conspiratorial rhetoric.Īt various points during Trump’s meandering, incoherent speech here Monday night, he said that the election in Pennsylvania would be stolen in Philadelphia by “you know who” (read: black people). There are the constant chants of “CNN sucks!” and “Lock her up!” There are the T-shirts and signs that read “Hillary for Prison” and other off-color descriptions of the first female presidential nominee. There are so many troubling aspects to a Donald Trump presidential rally it’s hard to keep count.

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