Trump, and the brazen administration he oversaw, must be understood as progeny of the War on Terror. The culture of Islamophobia mainstreamed by the war conditioned the people to want a leader made in its image, one who made explicit the Islamophobia buried under the technical language of the law and the oratory giftwrapping of President Obama. And Trump, a salesman of the highest order, gave the people what they wanted.

XREF: Connects to broader arguments about how institutionalized security policies create the cultural conditions for populist authoritarianism.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 304