Donald Trump has adopted the language of fascists and defied the orders of judges to stop intimidating witnesses in his various civil and criminal cases — and now a columnist warns the "violence is coming to a boil just below the surface."
While Trump's rhetoric may not be that important in the grand scheme of things, Salon's Heather Digby Parton writes that there is a definite "effect on our culture and our politics from his crude behavior."
"Trump shows intolerance toward people who disagree with him, and that can be anyone. And his example has given permission to vast numbers of Americans who now believe that they have no obligation to tolerate anyone they don't like," she writes.
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Parton cites recent research from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) which found that one in three Republicans agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
"I think this is part of what's making so many of the rest of us feel so off-balance right now," she wrote.
"Sure, Trump is a classic mid-20th-century racist and xenophobe in the old Archie Bunker mold. But over the course of the last eight years, he has created a political environment of coarse intolerance."
Read the full op-ed over at Salon.
