Donald Trump, an Orange Supremacist, has been opportunistic on many fronts–the GOP’s splintering, the decentralization of media, the destabilization of the American middle class–but isn’t it possible a good part of his ascendancy comes from a large number of white citizens being resentful they can no longer use racial slurs without consequence? Nearly every Trump supporter interviewed credits him with “speaking the truth” or “saying what they’d like to say,” which has a pretty clear meaning when you consider his remarks before and after entering politics. Being frightened doesn’t mean turning ugly, but Trump supporters seem to have been just waiting for the opportunity.

In a new interview, Noam Chomsky argues that the ridiculing realtor’s rise is the result of exploited fears, but polls show bigotry may be at least as responsible. Two excerpts follow.

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From Aaron Williams at AlterNet:

Question: 

What are your opinions on the surprising progress of Donald Trump? Could it be explained by a climate of fear?

Noam Chomsky: 

Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period. People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence. It’s interesting to compare the situation in the ‘30s, which I’m old enough to remember. 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.•

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From Lynn Vavreck at the New York Times:

Nationally, further analyses of the YouGov data show a similar trend: Nearly 20 percent of Mr. Trump’s voters disagreed with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Southern states during the Civil War. Only 5 percent of Mr. Rubio’s voters share this view.

Mr. Trump’s popularity with white, working-class voters who are more likely than other Republicans to believe that whites are a supreme race and who long for the Confederacy may make him unpopular among leaders in his party. But it’s worth noting that he isn’t persuading voters to hold these beliefs. The beliefs were there — and have been for some time.

Mr. Trump has reinvigorated explicit appeals to ethnocentrism, and some voters are responding.•