Still the frontrunner.
It's becoming harder and harder to figure out whether Donald Trump is serving as a spokesperson for the rest of the Republican presidential candidates, is giving the eventual nominee cover to say, "At least I'm not as bad as Trump," or is just having a cascade of hoots every day performing as the nation's most notorious troll.
His latest foray is catalogued at Mother Jones by Miles E. Johnson:
In an interview on Fox Business, host Stuart Varney asked Trump whether, if elected president, he would follow the anti-ISIS lead of the British government, which has revoked the passports of people who traveled to fight alongside extremists, and has planned to close mosques that are "used to host extremist meetings or speakers."
"I would do that, absolutely, I think it's great," Trump responded. Varney pressed Trump on whether he even could close a mosque, citing religious freedom as a possible roadblock.
"Well I don't know," Trump conceded. "I mean, I haven't heard about the closing of the mosque. It depends, if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear, I don't know. You're going to have to certainly look at it."
No doubt closing a few mosques or all of them appeals to some Islamophobic Americans who would rightly scream if anybody proposed closing their own places of worship.
Like airwave polluters Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Bryan Fischer, Trump seems to thrive on trying to make his latest comment even more outrageous than the previous one. But those talk show hosts probably are required by clauses in their contracts to keep cranking up the cray-cray. The Republican National Committee presumably sets forth no such mandates. Trump just does it on his own. So today it's, "Let's close some mosques," and tomorrow it could be "I'll fly the Confederate flag next to the Stars and Stripes atop the White House on Day One of my presidency!"
Not to worry. Only 12 more months of this dystopian, dyspeptic Reality TV show.