Trump call
For months pundits have been predicting—and Republican leaders have been hoping—that Donald Trump will self-destruct. Yet each time Trump makes another outrageous claim, his popularity rises among a certain sector of voters—mostly white, working-class Americans with less than a college education.
Trump fits the classic definition of a demagogue. A demagogue taps into widespread emotions, fears, and prejudices, channeling popular unrest for political gain. Rather than offer workable solutions to real problems, a demagogue promises rash actions which, if enacted, would endanger democratic governance—as in Trump’s suggestion, following the mass killings in San Bernardino, California, that all Muslims should be kept out of the country.
Columnist E. J. Dionne notes that Trump’s candidacy poses two threats. One is that people will take him too seriously. Though he stands at the top of the fractured field of Republican candidates, Trump’s appeal extends only to about 13 percent of the electorate, according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll. The media may have helped boost Trump’s rise by providing outsized attention to his colorful and sensationalist campaign. Trump has gotten far more press coverage than the self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, for example, even though the size of their following among voters is similar.
