Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination seems to be going ahead exactly as he has planned. If the polls are to be believed, then he has an almost unstoppable lead in most of the key states he needs to win. The Republican Party has started to put money behind efforts to stop him although the results are not consistent. Someone like Texas Senator Ted Cruz would need to win an inordinate amount of states and delegates just to have a slightest chance of catching Trump. Another strategy party leadership has been espousing is for every candidate left to stay in the race with the hope of denying Trump the delegates needed to automatically become the nominee. This would lead to a brokered convention where Republican leaders have a chance to use the rules to ignore the votes of the public.
Something that has been bothering voters beyond Right Wing pundits and die-hard Trump supporters is the rhetoric being used at nearly every Trump appearance. Trump speaks in broad generalities. He has little problem hanging the blame for all of the ills of society on minority groups, women and Muslims. He regularly attacks Democrats and Liberals as being behind some plot to drive America into the ground despite all the good that has been done in the country since the recession started in 2007. That type of rhetoric did not originate with Trump. It has been around for about a decade if not much longer.
A large amount of what Donald Trump says during his rallies and media appearances comes from AM talk radio. A significant portion of radio AM broadcasts are dominated by Right Wing hosts promoting ideas that do not always sit well with mainstream Americans. The names of the hosts are familiar to some. They are people like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity. Hours of Right Wing propaganda are broadcast each day across the country.
The problem is that much of the content aired is not based in reality. It is often conspiratorial, paranoid and hyperbolic. AM talk radio hosts were some of the people claiming President Obama was not an American citizen, was a secret Muslim or was a Communist. They stir up unfounded fears of death camps in Walmart stores, giant gun grabs by the government and the formation of private Obama armies waiting to shoot Republican voters. The vitriol from AM talk radio has grown worse and more disconnected from the truth as the Obama presidency has continued on over the years.
Donald Trump appears to be intentionally channeling that AM talk radio hatred. He is saying the things that were once heard only on AM radio or deep in the bowels of Conservative blogs. He does not outright denounce any of the rhetoric whether it is from conspiracy junkie Alex Jones or Conservative mouthpiece Monica Crowley. Trump is doing a good job of tapping into the hatred and stoking fear. This is potentially one reason why his followers have taken to swearing loyalty oaths to Trump and physically assaulting protestors.
Sadly, Trump’s irresponsible tactics are working. Democratic strategist Donna Brazile summed up this trend perfectly on ABC’s This Week. “Donald Trump is amplifying everything that we’ve heard on talk radio for the last eight years,” she said. “I denounce Donald Trump for not denouncing the kind of vitriol, the kind of violence that he has perpetrated with his angry rhetoric. And he knows exactly what he’s doing.” Brazile is not the first pundit to comment on Trump’s strategy. Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight. Trump has managed to rally a group of intolerant and bigoted people who seem to be wholly dedicated to making him the Republican presidential nominee at all costs.
