If you don't understand Trump's rise in the Republican polls, ask yourself three questions:

[Attorney in Texas]

Trump's campaign is perfectly tailored to the driven-by-talk-radio-fabricated-fear voter. For over 2 decades, hate radio has created fact-free paranoia to drive no-information voters to the polls. These voters are not low-information voters, but are the people who go to the polls strongly believing utter nonsense:

* Saddam Hussein attacked the US on 9/11 and was hiding weapons of mass destruction,
* tax cuts for the wealthy trickle down to benefit the poor,
* Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya,
* the scientific community is sharply divided on the "theories" of evolution and climate change,
* the Estate Tax was killing off family farms, and
* voter fraud is a huge problem that must be addressed.

Ask yourself 3 questions:

Question 1: How stupid would you have to be to believe such nonsense?

Question 2: How stupid would you have to be to support Trump?

Question 3: If your answer to both questions is "pretty fucking stupid," do you think that's a coincidence?

[n2doc]

1. These beliefs aren't accidental

They are fostered by repetition on AM hate radio and faux news. Especially points 2, 4,5, and 6.

[Attorney in Texas]

2. Hate radio created the monster of a constituency to serve the Republican party and now the beast

is trying to escape.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. and as someone who neither listens to radio or watches TV - Trump is nothing

but a phenomenon that gets discussed here and there on the web (to us)

Do not underestimate the great damage that TV is doing to our nations' collective "intellect"

[Attorney in Texas]

4. Trump presents an opportunity for every moron who has forwarded an email about Obama's birth

certificate or some equally imbecilic topic so say to himself "see, I'm not so dum after all because this guy thinks like myself and he's a billionaire who winning and so we cain't be stupit."

[snagglepuss]

5. Bang on nt

k and r

[Attorney in Texas]

6. People ask "where is Trump's ceiling?" I think "43 Percent of Republicans Think Obama Is Muslim"

according to the New York Times so I have no reason to believe that Trump's ceiling is below 43% (but probably not much higher than that).

[Attorney in Texas]

7. Yesterday's New York Times report that "43 Percent of Republicans Think Obama Is Muslim"

I have to believe that the overwhelming majority of that gleefully misinformed 43% are Trump supporters.

link to article "43 Percent of Republicans Think Obama Is Muslim"

[0rganism]

8. that actually wouldn't bother me, except it comes with a corrollary

really, it shouldn't matter if the POTUS is Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or Atheist, as the Constitution specifically states there will be no religious test for the holding of public office, but there's something else going on with the people who say Obama's Muslim.

they don't go into that belief thinking "well maybe he's a Muslim and that's okay," and then walk away from it.

seems to me, what they really mean by saying that is "Obama's a black savage who will rape our daughters and maybe blow up our cities, and he's coming to take our guns away, and he's not a Christian and only Christians can be president here because this is a Christian nation. Because The Bible says so." And who knows what a person with such beliefs is thinking when the president's motorcade is due to pass by.

[maryellen99]

9. Trump supporters/GOP support ethnic cleansing nt

[Attorney in Texas]

10. I think it is worrisome for 2 reasons: (1) the anti-Muslim issue and (2) the anti-fact issue.

I agree that these are not people who think Obama is Muslim and that's just fine -- they are people who bandy about the label Muslim as if it were synonymous with foreign or unAmerican.

Plus, everything about Obama (from his diet to his policies to his comments on faith) are all decidedly non-Muslim. To believe that Obama is Muslim, you have to make a number of counter-factual assumptions about Obama and about Islam. The sheer ignorance and misinformation is also troubling.