Trump stokes more fears, raises ante by calling Obama and Hillary founders of IS

WASHINGTON: America’s presidential election got weirder after Republican candidate Donald Trump called President Barack Obama the founder (and Hillary Clinton the co-founder) of the terrorist group ISIS, and the US Secret Service stepped in to contain the fallout from his earlier remarks that were widely seen as having the potential to instigate violence against his Democratic opponent.
US Secret Service agents were reported to have had conversations with the Trump campaign about his comments suggesting the '' second amendment people '' (euphemism for gun owners) be more pro-active to stop Hillary Clinton, who, he told them, would take away their guns rights .Trump tweeted that ''No such meeting or conversation (with Secret Service) ever happened,'' and accused CNN of making up the story it first reported.
But in an unprecedented move, the Secret Service itself tweeted that it is ''aware of the comments made earlier this afternoon,'' although it clarified it had not spoken formally to Trump.
Comedians joked that it is the first time in US political history that the Secret Service, tasked with protecting both Presidential nominees, had to guard one candidate from the other. But it was no laughing matter for many who now see Trump as a toxic agent provocateur.
''Trump’s reckless talk is the kind that can easily infect mentally or emotionally unstable sorts who, in bleak lives of isolation, frustration or desperation, might envision this as a clarion call to arms to carry out what the Republican presidential nominee seems to suggest,'' one newspaper editorial observed, noting that ''if that happens, a lot of Republicans will have blood on their hands.''
But Trump was unrepentant, insisted that his remark was not a call to arms but a call to political action. He then stepped up attacks against Democrats, calling Obama and Clinton founders of the Islamic State.
The fact that he was throwing out red meat to a slavering right wing crowd was evident in the way he spelled out the President’s full name --Barack Hussein Obama -- while offering no evidence to show the he had any role in ISIS’s birth.
Trump later phoned in a TV show to insist he had said nothing wrong and complained that liberal media had ganged up against him, launching into a self-absorbed babble about how great he is. ''All I do is tell the truth, I’m the truth-teller,'' he railed, even though many of his assertion have been proven to be outright lies – like accusing Hillary Clinton of wanting to scrub the second amendment that gun lovers in America interpret as giving them unconditional right to bear arms. He has also openly instigated and recommended violence and bloodshed at his rallies although his supporters pass them off as light-hearted asides.
There is little doubt now that Trump and his erratic manners and bizarre behavior are starting to give the world the creeps. A rapid descent from being mere buffoon to a dangerous buffoon to plain dangerous is not only being highlighted in various newspaper editorials and commentaries, but foreign leaders are now openly voicing their fears.
The German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is among those who said he feared a Trump Presidency and worried for the future of the world if he was elected to the White House given his sketchy understanding of history and politics.
Trump on his part is positioning himself (to his followers) as a politically incorrect purveyor and exposer of establishment narrative and policies that has led the world to bad place.
His core constituency fan-base – variously said to comprise of blue-collar, redneck, white folks without a college degree – love the incendiary rhetoric and egg him on with chants of ''USA! USA!'' and ''Lock her up! Lock her up,'' when he panders to their nativist sentiment and attacks Hillary Clinton. In Wednesday’s rallies, he raised the ante against the media, leading some of his fans to chant, ''Lock them up! Lock them up!''
While his tactics appear to be consolidating his core white male base, polls indicate he is losing support in the rest of the country that was all too ready to listen to a reasoned counter-narrative given the purported mistrust of Hillary Clinton. But with his receding poll numbers, Trump appears to be preparing ground for his defeat.
''If I lose, it's ok, I go back to a very good way of life,'' he said in one TV interview on Wednesday, while feebly insisting he stood a good chance of winning.