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Is Donald Trump really dangerous? One of my students, Evan Edwards, believes so and I thought you might like to consider some observations from this 22-year-old Texan about the Yankee salesman from New York. Here, with his permission, are some particularly sage excerpts from Evan’s paper entitled “Donald Trump and Muslims . . .”

“Danger arises when people interact with each other thinking one of them is better than the other. Dignity and respect take a back seat to arrogance. Recently, a tide of hatred has been rising in America. In Hitler’s time it was against Jews. Here and now it is against Islam. Donald Trump — catering to the hate that has been stirring among Americans toward Muslims for a long time — is inciting violence against Muslims through fear-mongering and outright hate-speech.

“Violence comes in many forms. Punching someone in the face is violent, but so is labeling and criticizing someone harshly by attacking their beliefs through generalizations that are insulting (and usually inaccurate). What people say in words often immediately precedes what they do in actions. For example, Trump has suggested that all Muslim Americans should ‘register with a government database and carry special identification cards that note their faith,’ and if he is elected president there will be a ‘wholesale surveillance of Muslim Americans and warrantless searches of mosques.’