Donald Trump’s proposed ban on non-U.S. Muslims attempting to enter the country is supported by a troubling majority of Republicans who voted in southern Super Tuesday states. Trump’s plan, as discovered in the International Business Times’ analysis of exit polls conducted by ABC News, scored a co-sign from more than 60 percent of Republican voters in five southern states. With Trump experiencing remarkable popularity in the region, these figures are truly something to consider with clarity and urgency.
Alabama and Arkansas supported Trump’s disgusting proposal with a whopping 78 percent of voters saying they agree with the ban, while Tennessee (72 percent), Texas (65 percent), and Virginia (64 percent) followed closely behind. "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," Trump infamously declared in December, using the nation’s fear surrounding attacks in Paris and San Bernardino as a tool for manipulation. Sadly, many Republicans flocked to this notion with apparent glee.
If the overarching theme of white supremacy that seems to permeate from every pore of the Trump campaign troubles you, then congratulations on recognizing something that has perhaps been bubbling beneath the Republican party for years. Trump has taken all the (often true) stereotypes of the GOP establishment—namely racism and shameless xenophobia—and blended them into some sort of poisonous mixed drink of which an alarming number of people simply can’t get enough.
Trump, despite an extended controversy surrounding his hesitance to outright denounce the support of a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, landed a large sum of victories on Super Tuesday. The frequent inciter of racism-tinted violence at his own rallies managed to ultimately win seven states, with his closest rival Ted Cruz garnering the support of three. To really drive home the overwhelming urgency of all of this, one need look no further than the fact that statistics show that white supremacy is actually a far greater threat to Americans' safety than the presence of radicalized Muslims.
