“[E]verything we have shown you — it’s less than one-tenth of one-one-thousandth million percent of the divisive, hateful rhetoric that is no the left in America,” Hannity said. “We can spend an entire week just playing tapes, just showing example after example. The problem we’re now facing is no one on the left has the courage, or very few, or the fortitude to speak out and stop the hatred. And that’s because Democrats use this kind of vile rhetoric every single election.”
.. “Every election, Republicans are what — they are racist, they’re sexist, they’re misogynistic,” he continued. “Let’s see, they want dirty air and water. They want to throw granny off the cliff. And that’s just part of their political playbook — Islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic — it never ends. The left objectifies Republicans, especially conservatives into something we are not. And they know the truth, but yet they contribute to this atmosphere where Republicans, we’re not even human. If you are conservative like me, God-awful. How do you even speak on television or radio? Now tonight, I know there is a Kumbaya moment for the country. I’m not buying it.
Sorry, Trump voters, you got scammed. You’re never going to get your wall.
It is simply impossible to overstate the symbolic importance both the wall and the idea that Mexico would pay for it had in 2016. Everything about Trump was embodied within it: the xenophobia, the vision of a world of threats and danger, the belief that complex problems have easy solutions, and most of all, the desire to stand tall and humiliate others, which was so critical to voters who felt beaten down and humiliated themselves. That’s why the preposterous notion that Mexico would pay for the wall was so critical: not because we need Mexico’s money, but because forcing it to pay would be an act of dominance, making it kneel before us, open up its wallets, and pay us for its own abasement.
.. Trump would tell his crowds, “The wall just got 10 feet higher!” And oh, would they cheer, thrilled beyond measure at the idea of punishing Mexico for its insolence and showing them who the boss is. Yes, the wall was about fear and hatred of immigrants, but more than anything it was a vision of empowerment.
.. He may also have realized that the wall is extremely unpopular, with polls consistently showing around 60 percent of Americans opposed to it, even if it remains popular with Trump’s base... the wall is more popular the farther you get from the border itself, which suggests that the people most unsettled by immigration aren’t those whose communities have the most immigrants, but those whose communities are incorporating significant numbers of immigrants for the first time... not a single member of the House or Senate who actually represents a border district or state .. supports building a wall... Every time they revisit the issue, the administration and Congress are going to confront the reality that a wall along the entire 2,000 miles of the border is utterly impractical, even if we were willing to pony up the money it would cost.. would require the use of eminent domain — which Republicans say they despise... The Department of Homeland Security already has a plan to build 100 miles worth of walls in some critical areas. That may well happen, along with other beefed-up border security efforts... Trump would regularly decree that the lobby of a building constituted floors 1-9 or 1-14, so he could claim that the building had more stories than it actually did. It didn’t fool anyone, but he kept doing it all the same.
A Land Without Strangers
For years Poland has lacked a meaningful support system for refugees, and the new pseudo-autocratic state, led by the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS), is committed to an explicitly xenophobic platform. Life for foreigners has become increasingly complicated since the elections in October 2015. There has been a collapse of support for migrants, a rapid conflation of the terms ‘Muslim’, ‘refugee’ and ‘terrorist’.
.. Her home was vandalized the week of my visit. She’s learned to say as little as possible.
‘What made you decide to come to Poland?’ I ask.
‘There was an accident,’ she says.
‘What sort of accident?’
‘A car accident.’
‘Well, what happened?’
‘A Russian tank ran into our car.’
Several of her young children were inside the car at the time, she adds.
.. Poland happens to be one of the most homogenous countries on earth. Few places so large and populous can claim to be as unified in race, ethnicity, language, religion – you name it.
.. About 97 per cent of Poland’s population are ethnic Pole
.. Jewish and Roma communities may have suffered centuries of abuse, but we were an unwavering presence in Poland – until the Holocaust. Enclaves of Ukrainians and Lithuanians persisted right up until Stalin’s deportation orders. The country’s ethnic pluralism never recovered.
Trump’s Fans Have More to Lose Than Trump Himself
If the Republican nominee loses, the millions of Americans supporting him will feel more isolated and disillusioned than ever before.
This is what Trump has done over the last year: He’s whipped up the darkest, angriest demons in the electorate. He has not simply given people permission to indulge any racist, sexist, xenophobic, or religiously intolerant tendencies they may harbor. He has insisted—loudly—that such bigotry is only common sense and mocked anyone who refuses to see the danger presented by “the other” as a blind idiot.
.. “I feel he’s the last chance we have to establish law and order and preserve the culture I grew up in.”