A liar at the heart of American politics

A liar, racist, demagogue and misogynist is the presidential candidate of the once great Republican Party. He won the nomination by exploiting the deep insecurities generated by decades of growing inequality in the United States. This in turn exacerbated and exposed the racist hostility to Mexicans, Muslims and African Americans, which lies just below the surface of American life.

so140112ralphThe general consensus among progressives in the US is that the large and growing inequality is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump and the ‘angry white man.’ For conservatives, led by a Republican Party which has been moving further to the right since Barry Goldwater became its presidential candidate in 1964, the problem is President Barack Obama. The fact is, though, that the Republicans have now reaped in Trump the kind of politics they have been sowing since 1964. Nixon’s Southern strategy, designed to win the support of Southern whites from the Democrats by exploiting fear and hatred of African Americans, attained its apotheosis in the Republican leadership’s open hatred of Barack Obama.

One of the reasons for the runaway candidacy of Donald Trump has been the light treatment of him by the media, which has failed to confront his lies. This has reached such an extreme that one of the moderators of the presidential debates, Chris Wallace of Fox News, a vehemently