Now many national security specialists fear that further attacks like the bombings that killed at least 30 people in Brussels on Tuesday will fuel Trump’s further rise, drawing more voters to his clenched-fist approach of closed borders and retribution killings — and could ultimately pave his unlikely path to the White House.
“In a climate of fear, Trump’s semi-authoritarian, unilateralist approach may be more appealing,” said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written about Trump’s strongman political style. “I don’t think so. But I might be wrong. It may be that people are so frightened that they’re willing to endorse policies that nobody over the last 50 years has even raised as remote possibility.”
Democrats insist that their presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, can harness public fear to her own advantage, saying voters will reward her long hours of experience in the White House Situation Room — something Clinton underscored during a Tuesday appearance on CNN when she recalled her role in the planning of the May 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
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