Spiteful bridge-blocker and candidate in the Republican Presidential primary farce, Chris Christie, assigns blame for the recent rise of anti-semitism and general intolerance to Trump's behavior. The permission that Trump gives to MAGAs with his hatred of all is supremely empowering and at the core of his attraction to said intolerables.
"When you show intolerance towards everyone, which is what he does, you give permission as a leader for others to have their intolerance come out," said Christie. "And so, you know, intolerance towards anyone encourages intolerance towards everyone. And that's exactly what's going on here."
I think this is a, if not the core, reason MAGA's love for Trump is so unassailable. Giving up on Trump means giving up on the guy who openly makes their racism and hatred of others OK to display in public. The wink-wink nudge-nudge of the Confederate Flag is now fully fledged support of white supremacy and Nazi enthusiast terror. Hatred is certainly not new, but the attitude towards openly displaying it in public has changed a lot in the last decade, and here in the US the MAGAs are loving it.
But Christie also blamed universities "who have been unwilling to stand up against anti-Semitism on their campuses."
"These are folks who are ignorant," he insisted. "And when they talk about intifada, my guess is two-thirds of them don't even know what intifada is. And if they did, they'd be ashamed of themselves for calling for the elimination of the Jewish people around the world, which is what intifada is."
"I think that there have been a lot of people who contributed to it," he added. "And I believe Donald Trump's intolerant language and his intolerant conduct gives others permission to act the same."
