Chomsky: Fear is driving Trump’s popularity

Noam Chomsky, the famed linguist and political activist, said in an interview Wednesday that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s campaign is doing so well because of a climate of fear.

“It’s interesting to compare the situation in the ‘30s, which I’m old enough to remember,” he said. “Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater. But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.”

“Sanders, in my opinion, is an honest and decent New Deal Democrat,” he said. “Corbyn expresses stands of traditional Labour. The fact that they are regarded as ‘extreme’ is a comment on the shift to the right of the whole political spectrum during the neoliberal period.”