Boom!

Lawrence Downes, of the New York Times, is working the Angry Americans beat today...

Because Mr. Trump is caustic and bombastic, many people find him delightful and refreshing. Late-night comedians have been praying for him to stick around, because the jokes write themselves.

But the problem with this particular clown is that his words are not clownish. The language he uses about immigrants is dehumanizing and vile. The audiences that adore him are animated not just by infatuation, but by the age-old catalysts of fear, resentment and hate.

This is what moves the Trump effect into the realm of the frightening, rather than amusing or fascinating.

When did that move happen? For me, it was his rally on Monday in Dallas, where he told an adoring crowd he was disgusted with what was happening to America. He called it “a dumping ground for the rest of the world.”

The garbage he was referring to is people, the same kind of people we describe more poetically on a plaque at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.
...
It’s not clear that Mr. Trump will end up with any power to pursue his racist agenda — his ambitions seem a lot narrower, more TV-based. But the toxic support he is stirring up, the polluted ideas he is spreading, the hate he is emboldening his supporters to voice with his blaring, surround-sound campaign — that evil will live after him.

We will be cleaning up after Mr. Trump for a long time.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke reassuringly to a Latino group on Tuesday, saying that Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans were taking pages from an old playbook that always fails.

“This will pass,” he said. This “sick message” has been tried on America before, and we always — “always, always, always, always” — overcome it.

Yes, we do, but it keeps coming back, and keeps doing damage.
...
Mr. Trump has made the nativists restless, on a national scale. Those in media and entertainment who are distracted by his comedic potential are missing the point. Jimmy Fallon, doing a skit with Mr. Trump, normalizes his toxic message, with giggles. (I’m hoping that Stephen Colbert, who has Mr. Trump on his show next week, will do better at avoiding this moral trap, but I’m not holding my breath.)

The Trump effect leads to a question I’ve been pondering. Is politics like physics, where adding gas to a container creates pressure and heat? If you keep pumping inflammatory speech into the public discourse, do you eventually get ignition?

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ADDED:

People Get Ready

People get ready
There' a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board

All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast

Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There's room for all
Among the loved the most

There ain't no room
For the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just
To save his own

Have pity on those
Whose chances are thinner
Cause there's no hiding place
From the Kingdom's Throne

So people get ready
For the train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board!

All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
You don't need no ticket
You just than, you just thank the Lord


I'm getting ready
I'm getting ready
This time I'm ready
This time I'm ready
~ Curtis Mayfield.