Donald Trump Responds to Orlando Attack by Exploiting Fear, Not Easing It
In his apocalyptic speech on Monday warning that terrorism could wipe out the United States — “There will be nothing, absolutely nothing, left,” he said — Mr. Trump substituted Muslim immigrants for the wolf pack. A single gunman carried out the Orlando massacre, he said. “Can you imagine what they’ll do in large groups, which we’re allowing now to come here?”
.. Mr. Trump appears wholly focused on the idea that America has reached an existential moment and that only he can save the country, a classic tactic of demagogy.
.. historian Doris Kearns Goodwin recalled that the “aroused demagogic fear” after Pearl Harbor had led to the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II — something Mr. Trump has said that, while he hated the idea, he might have supported at the time.