Introduction Trump announced, at a rally in Mount Pleasant, S.C. during his run for the Republican nomination, that he would call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims" in the United States and compared his plan, favorably, with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He also claimed he would send Syrian refugees already accepted into the U.S. back to Syria if made President, saying “I 'm putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, if I win, they 're going back" (Obeidallah, 2015). Trump has also made statements that he would consider requiring Muslim-Americans to register with a government database and order them to carry special identification that denotes their faith (Obeidallah, 2015). Whether Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric and propagandizing helped win him the election can and is being debated. What cannot be debated is a general lack of condemnation of these views from his supporters. The GOP may be distancing itself from such messages in an effort to save it’s brand, but the fact that the KKK is celebrating Trump’s victory as there own speaks volumes. Trump has successfully validated the views of white racists, homophobes, and xenophobes, giving them permission to speak loudly and act forcefully, even violently. He has also made clear that he conflates the acts of a few radical Islamic terrorists with the entire religion. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, that the
