While there was little doubt where his sympathies lay, it was not until Thursday that Donald Trump fully and publicly embraced the most conspiratorial aspects of right-wing American politics. Witness his speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, in which Trump engaged in the sort of rhetoric once associated with the likes of Father Coughlin and the John Birch Society.
Here’s the relevant excerpt from Trump’s address:
There are legitimate criticisms of Hillary Clinton, the country’s trade deals, its immigration policy, and political corruption at the highest levels. But talk of a “global power structure” and “international banks” recalls the sort of rantings found on Father Coughlin’s Roosevelt-era radio addresses. In one of his more famous addresses, 1937’s “Twenty Years Ago,” Coughlin railed against the calls for the United States to involve itself in the storm brewing Europe, to take the side of democracies there in order to keep the Western world “safe.”
“Safe for dictatorship? Safe against communism abroad when we have communism at home? Safe from socialism in France when we have socialism in America?” Coughlin ranted. Then, he added with a sneer: “Or safe, safe for the international bankers?” It’s no difficult to figure out who Coughlin, an anti-Semite, had in mind with that line.
Coughlin ended his address by entreating his listeners: “I ask you to think seriously of your decisions last November.” Looking forward to this November, it would be worth it for elected Republicans still supporting Trump to “think seriously” of their decisions, as well.
