Much has been made of how Donald Trump’s racist remarks on the 2016 presidential campaign trail are “un-American,” outlandish, and—incredibly to some—giving him a bump in the polls.
But others say it’s time for a reality check.
Trump is “definitely not an outlier,” Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, told The Hill. “We always have this undercurrent of xenophobia that can burst at the seams. This might be the match that turns something that was simmering into a boil.”