Still, it was interesting to learn that Marco Rubio doesn’t care about climate change, considering he lives in a city that seems to be submerging rather rapidly.
.. But the one thing he didn’t backtrack on was his recent statement to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “Islam hates us.” There were lots of openings. Trump was practically invited to say he meant only radical Islam. Or even to repeat one of his traditional softeners, like claiming he has Muslim friends. (“They say, ‘Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic.’”)
Trump Smashing Religous Right Formula to Bits
Just last week, Jerry Falwell, Jr., the president of the evangelical Liberty University, told students at the school’s convocation they should carry guns because “I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”
Liberal, Harsh Denmark
And then there is Denmark. A small, wealthy Scandinavian democracy of 5.6 million people, it is according to most measures one of the most open and egalitarian countries in the world. It has the highest income equality and one of the lowest poverty rates of any Western nation. Known for its nearly carbon-neutral cities, its free health care and university education for all, its bus drivers who are paid like accountants, its robust defense of gay rights and social freedoms, and its vigorous culture of social and political debate, the country has long been envied as a social-democratic success, a place where the state has an improbably durable record of doing good. Danish leaders also have a history of protecting religious minorities: the country was unique in Nazi-occupied Europe in prosecuting anti-Semitism and rescuing almost its entire Jewish population.
When it comes to refugees, however, Denmark has long led the continent in its shift to the right—and in its growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy. To the visitor, the country’s resistance to immigrants from Africa and the Middle East can seem implacable.
.. The new law, which passed with support from the Social Democrats as well as the Danish People’s Party, permits police to strip-search asylum-seekers and confiscate their cash and most valuables above 10,000 Danish kroner ($1,460) to pay for their accommodation
.. In part, the Danish approach has been driven by the country’s long experience with terrorism and jihadism. Nearly a decade before the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015, and the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris in November, the publication of the so-called Muhammad cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had already turned Denmark into a primary target for extremists.
.. Though Muslims make up less than 5 percent of the population, there is growing evidence that many of the new arrivals fail to enter the workforce, are slow to learn Danish, and end up in high-crime immigrant neighborhoods where, while relying on extensive state handouts, they and their children are cut off from Danish society.
.. With its unique combination of comprehensive welfare and a flexible labor market—known as flexicurity—Denmark has an efficient economy in which the rate of job turnover is one of the highest in Europe, yet almost 75 percent of working-age Danes are employed.
.. in 1997, a study of racism in EU countries found Danes to be simultaneously among the most tolerant and also the most racist of any European population
.. What made the Danish People’s Party particularly potent, however, was its robust defense of wealth redistribution and advanced welfare benefits for all Danes. “On a traditional left-right scheme they are very difficult to locate,” former prime minister Fogh Rasmussen told me in Copenhagen. “They are tough on crime, tough on immigration, but on welfare policy, they are center left. Sometimes they even try to surpass the Social Democrats.”
South Carolina’s Legacy, Exploited by Trump
First, the poll found that 70 percent of likely Trump voters believe that the flag should still be flying over the state capitol. And a plurality of Mr. Trump’s supporters wish that the South had won the Civil War.
.. Eighty percent support his proposal for banning Muslims from entering the country; 62 percent approve of creating a database on Muslims; 40 percent like the idea of shutting down all mosques in the country.
.. The South Carolina primary this time has focused heavily on fear-mongering against people of color, Muslims and immigrants in general. But Senator Ted Cruz lobbed a racially freighted attack on Senator Marco Rubio, with a new mailing that merges Mr. Rubio’s face with that of President Obama.