It's Not the Wolf, It's the Pack.

  Let's get this out of the way: Donald Trump is not going to be the President of the United States. The only reason he is doing as well as he is in the Republican primary race is the paucity of good options in their candidate field, the insurgent nature of their party base, and the rules of the election itself which allows any candidate to win by plurality.

  The concern about Trump should therefore not be about him actually having access to nuclear missiles. Nor should anyone bother anymore with the question of Trump's sincerity, i.e. whether this is all just a big publicity stunt. Such speculation is irrelevant because whether he truly buys into the parade he's marshaling, all that matters is the parade itself. Trump's negative impact on electoral politics in the United States will be felt in ways both immediate and long-term. In all manifestations, his impact will be negative.

  First, American Liberals, along with everyone else on earth, rightfully disparage Republicans for their denial of scientific facts, so being unconcerned with truth is nothing new for the GOP. In every GOP primary race since 2008, candidates from Rick Santorum, to Hermann Cain, to Michele Bachman have had their moments in the sun, and when enough light was shined on them and the kind of ignorance they represented they were required to go back to the shadows. Trump, however, pushes the envelope of fact-denial well beyond global warming, evolution, and vaccinations.Trump lies consistently (Check out Politico's summary covering just one week of false statements), and commits gaffs ("Rapists!", and "Megan Kelly's a woman!") that would end the campaigns of virtually any other candidate in recent memory.  Trump, however, has survived, and one cannot simply conclude that his charisma and media savvy are alone responsible: his supporters just don't give a damn about facts.

  A broad base of support that just does not concern itself with truth is dangerous for many reasons, but even more so when combined with the the oldest political tradition in the United States, one which predates the Republic and has been with us since the colonial period: Racism. Pat Buchanan's two primary campaigns in the 1990's seem tame compared to Trump's, if only because after winning New Hampshire in '92 Buchanan's unwanted endorsement from David Duke rightfully hurt his campaign. Trump has remarkably survived his David Duke moment, which he should never have gotten to in the first place given his proposed policy of blocking Muslims from immigrating to the United States, or of expelling all undocumented immigrants en masse from the country and forcing Mexico to build a wall along our southern border.

  While Republicans are obviously guilty of starting the so-called "Southern Strategy" by attracting the old Dixiecrat vote using code words like "law and order" and "welfare queens", there hasn't been, in nearly 50 years, a space deliberately created for White Nationalists on the national political scene. That has changed. Beyond simply playing with racism, Trump's campaign has actually provided a space for out-right ideological racists to operate in plain sight. They openly talk of attending his rallies, and mingling with his supporters, and of ditching the Confederate Flags and Swastikas and picking up Trump signs. While it is true most Trump fans don't see themselves as racists, polling done right before the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary demonstrates that a majority of his supporters do hold racist views, particularly towards Hispanics, Muslims, and people of middle eastern and south Asian descent.

  This direct link with fascists adds a certain color to what happened in Chicago this past Friday night. Trump claims he shut his rally down voluntarily after consulting with the Chicago PD, but was quickly refuted by CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. It's impossible to know for sure what was going through Trump's mind, but as Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show Saturday, it's hard not to see a more deliberate hand in all this. Trump may not have known for certain the Chicago rally would lead to larger protests than he'd expected, but it was an opportunity to avail himself of a quintessential strategy in the demagogue playbook: Invent or distort a narrative, inflame passions, provoke angry responses, and then present yourself as the only person who can fix it. How convenient that African-Americans had so far escaped his worst vitriol, right up until he had the opportunity to refute and attack David Duke. He waffled, and then planned rallies in cities that are experiencing heightened racial tension due to high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men. There was no question activists would seek to disrupt his events. Shutting down his Chicago rally was the equivalent of saying to his supporters, "See folks, this is what democracy gets you. This is what you have to put up with if I'm not in charge."

  All of this, the willful and prideful ignorance, the acceptance of racist elements, and the incitement of violence as a means of drawing attention, are a toxic brew. Nonetheless, if we think of Trump as the id of the American psyche, an ugly impulse, the worst manifestation of the noxious and myopic nationalism fomented since 9/11, perhaps the anger he promotes will simply fade when he does. Or, even if he can't achieve higher office, what will be the outcome of millions of Americans who felt energized by his campaign meeting up with some of the most dangerous fringe elements in the country? What will they plan? What will they organize?

  What of the impact on electoral politics? Major realignments in the American political party system have depended on whether a party's more racist elements are on board with changes being made at a national level. The revolt of southern Whigs in the antebellum period led directly to the formation of the northern, anti-slavery Republican Party. The endorsement of the civil rights movement by northern and western democrats led to the Dixiecrat revolt in 1948-68. If you're a Democrat, a fracturing of the Republican Party might sound like a good thing, but if either of those historical examples teach us anything, it's that if a faction leaves one party, it is often absorbed by another. Pro-Slavery Whigs became Democrats, and Dixiecrats became Republicans. Already the Neo-Con wing of the GOP, the extremely twisted and mis-guided ideological architects of the Iraq War, has openly stated it will side with Clinton if Trump wins the nomination. If the collapse of the Republican tent leads to an increase of the size of the Democratic one, how soon before a neo-conservative wing of the Democratic party fissures with what is emerging as the Social Democratic wing led by Bernie Sanders?