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“People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence," MIT professor Noam Chomsky said when asked to comment on Donald Trump's campaign success thus far. | Getty Chomsky: Trump's rise due to 'breakdown of society'

MIT professor and intellectual Noam Chomsky attributes Donald Trump’s success in the Republican presidential primary to “fear” and a “breakdown of society.”

In an interview published Tuesday, AlterNet’s Aaron Williams asked Chomsky for his thoughts on Trump’s “surprising progress.” After a second-place finish in Iowa, the billionaire has stormed to consecutive double-digit wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

“Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period,” Chomsky responded. “People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence.”

Chomsky compared the political environment that’s allowed Trump to flourish to the 1930s, when the U.S. was in the Great Depression. “Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater,” Chomsky said. “But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.”

Trump and Hillary Clinton are leading in their respective primaries, but Chomsky demurred when asked who he thought would win the White House.

“I can express hopes and fears, but not predictions,” he said.

Chomsky has contributed to Bernie Sanders’ campaigns in the past but said he would “absolutely” vote for Clinton over the Republican nominee if he lived in a swing state.

In an interview last month, Chomsky praised Sanders but said the Vermont senator didn’t have “much of a chance” due to “our system of mainly bought elections.”