If you don't want the rest of the nation asking obnoxious questions about whether or not your new hard-right movement represents a new Americanized form of not-very-well-camouflagued fascism, you probably need to avoid talk about
rounding up millions of undesirables and forcibly removing them from the population.
You probably don't want your movement's influential pundits to be gaming out, on their programs, how you'd build concentration camps to house the ones that you couldn't deport and make use of their labor.
And when followers of your movement take what seems to them to be a perfectly logical next step, opportunistically attacking an ethnic-looking "undesirable" on the street and caving in his nose, among other inflicted injuries, you probably do not want your highest-profile movement leader to shake his head and condemn the attack while at the same time explaining that if it happened, it happened because his followers just tend to love their nation so very much.
The homeless man was lying on the ground, shaking, when police arrived early Wednesday. His face was soaked, apparently with urine, his nose broken, his chest and arms battered.
Police said two brothers from South Boston ambushed the 58-year-old as he slept outside of a Dorchester MBTA stop, and targeted him because he is Hispanic. One of the brothers said he was inspired in part by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Trump, told of the alleged assault, said “it would be a shame . . . I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
You can put out all the happy-faced books you want, it doesn't change the fact that (1) there are precedents for all these things and it tends to end in bad places and (2) base movement support for these ethnically oriented theories of "making this nation great again" is sufficiently widespread to render them safe material for political talk shows and the nation's legislative bodies and, when adopted by a would-be national leader, rockets that leader to the top spot among party hopefuls.
Just. Saying.
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