What’s most worrisome about Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s xenophobic remarks about Mexicans is not that he actually made them, but the fact that they seem to have helped him among Repub-lican voters nationwide.
What’s more, the business tycoon’s tirade against Mexico and Mexicans was celebrated by some of his fellow Republican hopefuls, and have yet to be officially denounced as offensive — if not outright racist — by the Republican National Committee.
Obviously, part of the US population is still willing to believe the blatant falsehoods and half-truths uttered by Trump and other politicians who, like populist demagogues in other countries, seek popularity by blaming foreigners for their countries’ economic problems.
According to a Pew Research Center poll, only 39 per cent of Americans expressed a favourable view of Mexico in 2013, down from 47 per cent before the US financial crisis of 2008. The US economic downturn may have had a