A few thoughts on Tom’s points here. True there are lots of people on the edge. Yes, anti-semites and kkk types aren’t new. It’s also true it’s usually hard to tie a specific incident to Trump or other radicalizer, just as you can’t say any one megastorm was ...
2/ specifically caused by climate change. But Trump is clearly acting as an accelerant. And having the President push these ideas by definition mainstreams them. Prez says it, Fox says it. Half the political class tacitly concurs. That authority imparts legitimacy.
3/ There’s a more general point. Trumps entire political program revolves around keeping his core supporters in a state of fear and agitated victimization about an ever changing cast of enemies: immigrants, kneeling black athletes, violent Democrats, global financiers.
4/ I tend to agree with Tom that much of this is just spitballing. Figure out what stimulates the base’s beerbelly erogenous zone and go with it. This political strategy in itself pushes people toward radicalization. The language and idea constructs do too.
5/ So I don’t think we can say these guys would have gone off regardless. The climate of radicalization feeds on itself. Trumps core political strategy, in addition to his personality, requires it.
