Is Donald Trump an American Putin?; Washington Post, 8/18/15

David Ignatius, Washington Post; Is Donald Trump an American Putin? :

"Trump’s tirades about illegal immigration, his loudest campaign theme, are part of a long and ugly story in the United States. Within 70 years of the republic’s founding, a party aptly dubbed the “Know-Nothings” was bashing immigrants, especially Catholics. Over subsequent decades, nativists were attacking every new thread of the American quilt — Irish, Italian, German, Slavic, Jewish, Chinese and African, as John Higham explains in his landmark history, “Strangers in the Land.”

What’s surprising about Trump is that he has attracted such a wide following. He’s Reagan without Reaganism, running a campaign nearly devoid of ideas. Americans have had flirtations with demagogues, from Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. But the bullying authoritarian personality — the Putin style — usually doesn’t work here. This summer has been an exception, but history suggests that it won’t last."