Juan knows bigotry and presents the hateful and prejudicial views that the republican primary candidates expressed in pandering to the ignorance, hate, fears, and religious tribalism that they perceived to be their base, apparently from their close exposure to powerful bigots within their acquaintance. Juan opines that this may hurt the party of bigotry in the general election, hoping that these views will be rejected by the American people. He does not mention that such hate views are widely echoed in the reich wing corporate press, and that the "big lie" effect may have colored the views of the public. Articles like this that recount the bigotry are helpful in correcting the big lie.

Cole presents good evidence, though I didn't find his overall argument - that anti-Muslim sloganeering will hurt the GOP in Nov - that convincing. Just as there's not a lot of rationality in these sentiments, there's no reason voters will think rationally about them.

This is an ok example of journalism; it could have been better with less examples of the Republican candidates statements and more focus on the why "Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols would never be called "Christian terrorists" even though they were in close contact with the Christian Identity Movement." And more emphasis on "Perhaps most worrisome of all: If any of the remaining candidates does win the presidency, he is going to have to cultivate close relations with Middle Eastern regimes to even begin resolving the mess in that region. And that president will have to do so saddled from the start with a legacy of denigrating Islam and Muslims." and the implication of such for U.S. citizen's. The question really is 'Are op-ed ... More »

This opinion piece has no journalistic merit. It is riddled with inaccuracies, and essentially is a reflection of the author's extremist prejudices. The author seems unaware that the U.S. has much better relations today with all Arab countries (except Syria), as well as Indonesia, than it did in 2000. He also seems to consider anyone to the right of him as a "conservative" which makes many of his comments pure hyperbole.