Trump, useful idiot?

Donald Trump’s critics lambaste him as a carnival barker, a huckster, a liar, a demagogue, and a fearmonger.  Some pundits call him a proto-fascist.  I do not know about the last, but the rest are almost inarguably true.  Moreover, Trump is like a Manchurian candidate, unwittingly doing the bidding of ISIS and, separately, Democrats.

Trump, like Marine Le Pen and ultra-rightist, xenophobic politicians in Europe, is unwittingly – let us hope unwittingly – assisting ISIS in exacerbating insecurities, fears, and alienation of Muslim citizens.  His fearmongering and anti-Muslim rhetoric likely aggravate threats to homeland security deriving from self-radicalization and lone wolf terrorism.  

{mosads}ISIS has recently committed spectacular acts of terrorism in Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and France.  Swiss security services seek to preempt a possible terrorist plot, and on-line chatter suggests ISIS terrorist threats to Toronto and Chicago, although possibly aspirational.  In San Bernardino, Syed Farook and Tafsheen Malik pledged loyalty to ISIS.  They may have been self-radicalized lone wolves, but the possibility of a larger conspiracy exists.  ISIS is coming.  

Trump, the Manchurian candidate, is unwittingly playing the role ISIS would have him play.  In February, ISIS stated in Dabiq magazine its strategy to use terrorism to exacerbate the isolation and alienation of Western Muslims, destroying what it called the “gray zone of coexistence” between Western democracies and their Muslim populations.  ISIS wants a clash of civilizations, leaving Muslims no choice but to side with global jihad. 

In response to Paris and San Bernardino, Trump did not lay out a coherent strategy to combat ISIS and bolster homeland security.  Instead, he called for banning entrance of all foreign Muslims into the U.S. and he intimated Americans should fear Muslim neighbors, even as he called on U.S. citizens to arm themselves.  The ban is ridiculously infeasible and legally problematic.  Previously, Trump called for systematic surveillance of mosques, repeatedly asserted incorrectly that New Jersey Muslims demonstrated in support of 9/11, and said he would consider entering all U.S. Muslims in a national registry.  Trump is father of the “birther movement” which claimed erroneously that President Obama was Muslim and foreign born.

This incendiary rhetoric causes tensions with U.S. allies in Europe and the Islamic world, in addition to creating ethnic and racial tensions that could lead alienated Muslims to embrace jihad and white hate groups to lash out.  British Prime Minister Cameron decried Trump’s rhetoric as “divisive.”  Benjamin Netanyahu repudiated the Muslim ban as religious discrimination, with Trump canceling a scheduled visit to Israel and scrapping tentative plans to go to Jordan.  The Gulf Cooperation Council, Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia joined the chorus of criticism.  The first two called Trump racist. 

Any successful strategy to defeat ISIS and secure the homeland will be predicated on close cooperation with Sunni allies and American Muslims feeling they are fully accepted citizens.  Trump either does not recognize this, or does not care, preferring to use fearmongering to exploit the rage and alienation of many Americans. 

Republicans, establishment and Tea Party alike, also ought to wonder if Trump is the Democrats’ Manchurian candidate or useful idiot.  Former Secretary of State Clinton, on her way to coronation barring an indictment over her emails, must be ecstatic about Trump’s possibly irreparable damage to the GOP brand.  Given Clinton’s high negatives, any pragmatic center-right Republican nominee should be able to give her a run for her money.

Trump’s toxic rhetoric may hand the presidency and Senate to Democrats.  Trump’s Muslim bashing, coupled with his labeling of Mexican illegal immigrants as rapists and murderers, retweet of a neo-Nazi attack on African-Americans, harangues against China and Japan, and blatant sexism may poison the well with minority and women voters. 

If Trump’s numbers hold up, it may not be possible for any mainstream, establishment candidate to catch up to him, given how front-loaded the primaries are.  Pundits are fixated on the possibility of a brokered convention, with the party establishment seeking to wrest the nomination from Trump.  A look at recent polls, shows that Trump, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Ben Carson have over 60 percent support.  In a brokered convention, a Trump-Cruz-Carson axis likely would dictate the outcome. 

Republicans face apocalypse at the convention in Cleveland.  Teddy Roosevelt declared in 1912, “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord,” as he sought to save Republican progressivism.  It is time for any center-right Conservatives and Republicans desirous of a credible, coherent national security strategy to take an unequivocal moral stance and declare they will not support a Trump nomination, as they battle for the GOP’s soul.  History is watching.

Davis is a retired intelligence analyst, who worked with the Army Special Operations Command, Defense Intelligence Agency, and CIA.