Newspapers across the country are reacting to GOP candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. First up, The Economist:
Mr Trump’s long success says something troubling and revealing about the conservative movement, parts of which have become a fever swamp of xenophobia and a plague-on-them-all rage. More conventional Republicans gripe that Mr Trump is not a proper conservative at all, citing his past support for state-run healthcare, higher taxes on private-equity-fund bosses and other apostasies. But they cannot wish away the quarter to a third of self-declared Republican voters who cheer when they hear Mr Trump vow to deport 11m people who lack legal papers to stay in America, promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico (while accusing Mexico of sending rapists and criminals over as migrants) and suggest that Muslims should be registered on a government database. [...]
Perhaps Mr Trump has finally gone too far, not just by proposing to close America to a whole religion, but with his snarling assertions on Monday night that many Muslims are lying about their loyalties, and preying on the naivety of a “stupid” America. Perhaps; though the press and establishment Republicans have predicted doom for Mr Trump before and been wrong each time.
After months of shadow-boxing between the candidates, actual Republican voters will have a say on February 1st at the Iowa caucus, followed by the New Hampshire primary on February 9th. For the sake of Republicans, and indeed America’s ability to forge alliances with the Muslim world, hope that early-state voters reject Mr Trump’s nativism. Sadly, even if they do rebuff the businessman, lasting damage has already been done.
There is indeed “something troubling and revealing about the conservative movement,” and Ben Casselman and Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight shed some light on Trump’s base support:
For starters, Trump has already suggested the government may need to shutter U.S. mosques and create a mandatory registry to track Muslims in the United States. While many of his rivals took issue with those remarks, they don’t sound all that different from him on the stump. Many have called for the same type of no-Muslims religious test for Syrian refugees looking to resettle in the United States. Ben Carson has proposed a similar test for future presidents (while also likening Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs”). And Ted Cruz has vowed to “shut down the broken immigration system that is letting jihadists into our country.” The common conservative refrain on the campaign trail, meanwhile, has long been that the first step in fighting ISIS is to define it as “radical Islamic terrorism.” (Republicans feel noticeably differently, however, about terrorist attacks committed by Christians.) The GOP field, then, is already on the record that they believe the Islamic faith itself poses a threat to the United States. Trump’s proposal is the logical conclusion to the type of illogical belligerence that Republicans have increasingly directed at Muslims in the wake of last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris and last week’s massacre in San Bernardino, California.
At The Statesman Journal, Ron Eachus provides a sobering take on the “collective view of GOP candidates”:
Thirty Republican governors have said no to Syrian refugees in their state. Ben Carson likened refugees to “rabid dogs,” and Trump pledged to deport those who are here, called for a nation-wide registry of Muslims, and raised the possibility of closing mosques.
This is how we’ll stop radical Islamic terrorism. Bombs away while we turn away refugees fleeing war and persecution because of their religion. That should make the people of the Middle East less susceptible to radicalization against the West. America’s light will shine bright all right.
The attitude toward Muslims and Muslim refugees is but one part of a cleansing. [...] This new world isn’t the vision of any one individual. It is the collective view of the larger field of GOP candidates. This is the world they promise to bring us. A brave new, wonderful world of military might in wars around the globe, and a police state at home.
Chris Cillizza provides the beltway take:
Now, with his "ban Muslim immigration" proposal, Trump has become a clear and present danger for a party that badly needs to re-position itself with non-white voters after two sweeping losses at the presidential level in 2008 and 2012. Trump, given his status at the front of the 2016 pack and his increasing willingness to adopt positions on the fringes of mainstream political thought, has the very real potential to cost Republicans up and down the ballot should he be the nominee.
And there's not a damn thing the party establishment can do about it.
John Cassidy at The New Yorker:
Mockery of the political establishment. an “us versus them” attitude, the myth of national regeneration: all of these things have long been associated with political movements of the far right, course, and among the commentariat there is now a lively debate about whether or not Trump can be regarded as fascist or proto-fascist. Since there is no generally agreed-upon definition of fascism, this discussion is unlikely to be resolved. What can be said without fear of contradiction is that Trump represents a long-standing and deep-rooted strain of American nativism and parochialism, which, in earlier eras, was exploited by such figures as Father Coughlin, Joseph McCarthy, and George Wallace.
How far can Trump push it? To repeat, the polls suggest that his support is limited, however vocal it may be. And unlike Marine Le Pen, he doesn’t have a separate political party behind him. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, formed the National Front in 1972, and it has spent more than four decades agitating and building up its presence at the local level. But it wasn’t until the telegenic Marine took over as the Party’s leader, in 2011, and set out to “de-demonize” its public image that the National Front became a serious threat to the mainstream parties.
Switching topics in the roundup, The New York Times featured an op-ed by Hillary Clinton on reigning in Wall Street:
First, we need to further rein in major financial institutions. My plan proposes legislation that would impose a new risk fee on dozens of the biggest banks — those with more than $50 billion in assets — and other systemically important financial institutions to discourage the kind of hazardous behavior that could induce another crisis. I would also ensure that the federal government has — and is prepared to use — the authority and tools necessary to reorganize, downsize and ultimately break up any financial institution that is too large and risky to be managed effectively. No bank or financial firm should be too big to manage.
And on a final note, Anna North explains why “good guys” with guns “won’t keep us safe”:
An online class is enough training to qualify for a concealed-carry permit in some states, while soldiers and police officers are trained for months or years. Even this training has not been sufficient to keep some police officers from fatally shooting unarmed black men and boys. Do we really think an online certification is enough to enable average Americans to take the law into their own hands?
And do we, as Americans, really want to do this? The responsibility to kill is an incredibly heavy one, and the consequences of exercising it can be severe. Some police departments offer therapy to officers who fire their weapons. The military has only begun to reckon with the devastating psychological toll of combat. We are not prepared for every American, all the time, to feel and behave like a police officer in a firefight or a soldier at war. We should not have to prepare for it.