Trump on Muslims: FDR as a role model?

By Julia Kingsley and Jon Healey

Dec. 8, 2015 2:13 PM PT

Donald Trump’s statements Monday at a rally in Yorktown, S.C., calling for the United States to ban the entry of any Muslims drew cries of alarm and repudiation from many around the world. Trump, though, insisted that he was more like FDR now than any leader since, according to his statement Tuesday on MSNBC's Morning Joe. And then on ABC, he told Barbara Walters that even his Muslim friends agree with his proposed ban. (See the clip above.)

The Trump has been let out of the bag, and now we are all talking about him. The question is: does this conversation feed his political fire or will it immolate him?

According a report today in the The New York Times, top GOP pols (except Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has assiduously courted Trump's followers in the hope of claiming them as his own someday) want this to be Trump’s Last Stand, so they're working hard to distance themselves from him. Here's the NYT's take:

Many Republican leaders have struggled with how to deal with Mr. Trump, who has tapped into a deep well of anger and frustration among voters who polls show have lost trust in their elected officials and in many institutions. But they are also concerned about the impact that Mr. Trump will have on the party’s chances of recapturing the White House.

Critics ranging from the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, a Republican, to the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, a Democrat, assailed Mr. Trump’s proposal as self-defeating and un-American. “Tell Donald Trump: Hate is not an American value,” Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter.

The “super PAC” supporting Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, unveiled its first attack ad against Mr. Trump, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called him a “xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot.”

But Senator Ted Cruz, who is vying for much the same base of support that Mr. Trump now enjoys, declined to join in the scolding. “I commend Donald Trump for standing up and focusing America’s attention on the need to secure our borders,” he said at the Capitol.

Leaders in Europe and Egypt are taking a similar stance, reports Annie Gowen of the Washington Post, only in this case it may result in distancing themselves from the United States rather than just the Republican Party. There’s nothing quite like hate speech to bring world leaders together around a common enemy, who happens to be one of our presidential candidates. From the Post:

Citizens, politicians and refugee officials alike slammed the Republican presidential front-runner’s latest controversial statement, calling it hate speech and a disturbing sign of Islamophobia in a country rattled in recent weeks by large-scale terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.

Dar al-Ifta, Egypt’s official religious body, dubbed Trump’s remarks “hate rhetoric,” and a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency expressed concern that they could jeopardize the ongoing refugee resettlement process.

While it is rare for a British prime minister to comment on contenders in the U.S. presidential race, Prime Minister David Cameron joined British politicians from all parties in condemning Trump’s remarks. Cameron said through a spokeswoman that he “completely disagrees” with Trump’s comments, which he regards as “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.”

As CEO of Amazon and Blue Origin and owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos is uniquely positioned to be America's expert on news, goods and space travel. And Bezos knows exactly what to do with Trump, according to Tweets reported by ABC News:

Jeff Bezos has only tweeted four times but has already spawned a movement with his hashtag #sendDonaldtospace.

The Amazon CEO, who owns the Washington Post and private space company Blue Origin, sent a rare tweet Monday night after presidential candidate Donald Trump hurled a few 140-character or less comments his way regarding Bezos' companies.

From Bezos to Trump:
Finally trashed by @realDonaldTrump. Will still reserve him a seat on the Blue Origin rocket. #sendDonaldtospace https://bit.ly/1OpyW5N

From Trump to Bezos:
The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.

It’s nice to fantasize about sending world leaders into space, but we are left with the fact that we actually still do not know what to do with Trump here on Earth. What’s more, Trump may have left a bigger impact than is realized, as commented by Owen Jones of the Guardian:

Trump’s comments do not exist in a vacuum. Anti-Muslim prejudice has been mounting across the western world ever since al-Qaida’s atrocities in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania back in 2001. Polling in June found that, if presented with a “well-qualified” Muslim candidate for president, 38% of Americans would not vote for them.

A resurgent European far-right targets Muslims, just as their forerunners scapegoated Jewish people: whether it be the Front National, thriving in France’s weekend regional polls, the Swedish Democrats, the Danish People’s party or the Austrian Freedom party.

In other words, Trump's latest salvos amount to a few bigoted drops in the ever-overflowing bucket of Islamophobia within the United States and abroad. Yet Trump has a voice on the global stage, and he's holding on to his audience even as his statements get more outlandish. Political leaders may denounce him, but any news is good news, and Trump is getting a lot of news.

The conversation continues…

Kingsley is a Coro Fellow at The Times, and Healey is the paper's Deputy Editorial Page Editor.

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