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Bethan McKernan
Nov 26, 2015
It took a lot longer than it should have, but conservative America appears to have finally realised that Donald Trump is not fit to be the leader of the free world.
In the wake of the Paris terror attacks earlier this month, property mogul and GOP presidential candidate frontrunner Donald Trump said that he would be open to the idea of shutting down mosques in the US and requiring all Muslim citizens to carry special ID papers.
The remarks were met with derision from all sides, especially when Trump was asked last week how his idea of tracking Muslims differed from the forced registration of Jews in Nazi Germany and couldn't come up with a coherent answer.
He's also been under fire for saying that Muslims in New Jersey "cheered" as the World Trade Center came down on 9/11, a claim which has been thoroughly debunked.
Initially most conservative pundits dismissed Trump's run as clownish.
But as his offensive views (or as Trump would say, 'unpolitically correct') on Latinos, women, black people and poor people have made no dent on his climb to the top of the polls, it appears Trump is now being viewed as a more malevolent threat, even in right-wing circles.
Max Boot, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is advising Marco Rubio's presidential campaign, came straight out and used the F-word on Twitter:
As did John Noonan, an adviser to Jeb Bush, and Jim Gilmore, a lesser-known Republican presidential candidate.
Trump was defending himself from the allegations that the right wing rhetoric has gone too far at a rally in South Carolina on Tuesday when he mocked a reporter's disability.
Trump imitated the movements of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints.
Trump continues to ride high in the polls, but as FiveThirtyEight points out, he's still a long way from securing the nomination.
Which is welcome news, considering the s--tstorm we have to call Trump's presidential bid is showing no signs of letting up yet.
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