Back on September 17, as Donald Trump basked in the post-Labor Day glow of being the Republican Party's undisputed frontrunner, he spoke to a boisterous crowd in New Hampshire and took a question from an especially boisterous fan. "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American," said the Trump t-shirt-wearing man. "We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?"
Trump reassured the agitated man: "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things."
Turns out one of those "things" under review was Trump's stop-the-presses, are-you-kidding-me? proposal this week to implement "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." (Yes, it's likely unconstitutional. Yes, logistically it's not possible.)
The announcement dropped so many jaws that not only did key Republicans denounce the move, but lots of conservative commentators also rushed to deplore Trump's shortsighted extremism.
But boy, talking about shutting the barn door about three months too late. These are many of the same players who enabled Trump's bigoted rise and cheered his derogatory, especially when its target was the White House. The conservative media helped lay out a blueprint of fear and paranoia for him.
As Nathan Lean noted in his book, The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, back in August 2006, Fox News guest Mike Gallagher suggested an "all Muslims checkpoint line" at American airports. And after the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, Fox's Brian Kilmeade suggested "special screenings" for Muslim U.S. soldiers.
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