Democrats tried to laugh off the rise of Donald Trump for as long as they could but those days are over.
As this new column from The New York Times suggests, even some Hillary Clinton supporters are getting on board with Trump’s message:
To Democrats, Donald Trump Is No Longer a Laughing Matter
WATERLOO, Iowa — Until Monday, when Donald J. Trump proposed a ban on Muslims entering the United States, Hillary Clinton could hardly keep herself from laughing at the mention of his name. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she told ABC News on Sunday, letting out a giggle that made advisers squirm.
She is no longer laughing.
At a town hall here on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton delivered her most damning, direct criticism of Mr. Trump, saying that he traffics “in prejudice and paranoia,” and that his Muslim proposal was “not only shameful, it’s dangerous.”
But Mrs. Clinton also strove to recognize something stirring in the electorate that Mr. Trump had clearly tapped into. “It’s O.K., it’s O.K. to be afraid,” she said. “When bad things happen, it does cause anxiety and fear,” she added. “But then you pull yourself together and, especially, if you want to be a leader of our country, and you say:‘O.K., what are we going to do about it? How are we going to be prepared?’”
The remarks bore little resemblance to Mrs. Clinton’s previous dismissals of Mr. Trump, She had portrayed him as a reality television sideshow who voiced more extreme terms beliefs that, she contended, his more serious G.O.P. rivals shared.
But since Mr. Trump’s response to the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif., Mrs. Clinton and her campaign, confounded by his continued strength in the polls, have had to rethink how they handle Mr. Trump and what his candidacy, and the anger in the electorate that has fueled it, means for her chances in 2016.
Some of her own voters are giving her reason to.
Bennie Stickley, a 75-year-old in Gilbertville, Iowa, who retired from a John Deere factory, said he was supporting Mrs. Clinton but agrees with Mr. Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims. “I’m for him on that,” he said. “We shouldn’t be letting those people into the country,” he added.
Let’s see the mainstream media spin that.
