But from an international vantage point, Trump’s maneuver here is totally predictable. While new to America, using gay rights as a smokescreen through which to advocate anti-Muslim policies is a favorite trick of the European far right, and has been for more than a decade. Trump’s innovation is taking advantage of the US’s pro-gay trajectory in recent years to adapt the technique for American audiences.
The first politician to master this line of argument was the Dutch activist Pim Fortuyn, whose just-founded political party took second place in the 2002 Dutch elections, nine days after Fortuyn himself was assassinated.
As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp notes, there are more than a few parallels between Fortuyn and Trump. They both rose to political power seemingly out of nowhere by exploiting anti-immigrant sentiment. Both proposed blanket bans on Muslim immigration. Each terrified the center-right establishment in his country. [...]
Frank Gaffney, another vocal anti-Muslim bigot and former adviser to Ted Cruz, has made similar comments, expressing bafflement at left-wing solidarity with Muslims: "the antipathy of the Islamists to homosexuality yet being supported by people who prize homosexual rights and have many of them in their ranks."
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