In 1985 Manafort worked with Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  After being put on trial in the Philippines in 1986, Marcos was found guilty of violating the human rights of some 10,000 Filipinos and ordered to pay a total of two billion dollars in compensation to the victims. According to The Daily Beast “In 2004, Transparency International listed him as one of the world’s 10 most notorious leaders of the previous two decades (along with Mobutu Sese Seko, another Manafort client). They estimate Marcos embezzled between $5 million and $10 million from his people. Almost 50,000 Filipinos have filed claims for reparations for crimes against them during Marcos’s era of martial law, according to the Philippine news site Rappler.com.”

In American primary campaigns candidates tact to the more extreme sides of their respective parties in order to win the nomination of their parties. They then try to move towards the center of the political spectrum in order to win the general election since the country in neither as liberal nor conservative as the parties wish they were.

There’s a real problem with Donald Trump and his extreme hate-filled rhetoric.  Anyone who says, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you…They’re sending people that have lots of problems…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” has no place on the mainstream American political stage.  This is not the articulation of a mentality that will keep America safe.  It will only be used to turn more people against us.

Trump has called for called for surveillance against mosques and said he was open to establishing a database for all Muslims living in the U.S.  This sounds more like a throwback to the racist mentality articulated by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision, “...can negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves…become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument (the Constitution) to the citizen…”  Simply put, do the protections of the Constitution apply to everyone in this Country?  Taney said no! “they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.” 

Trump’s call for suspending the Constitutional protections for American Muslims is not the world view of a person who is campaigning to become the “leader of the free world”. This is the world view of a bigot who either does not understand the protections guaranteed to all citizens or chooses to ignore them.  Not to mention, according to Trump, "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families...”

Senator Graham said that Trump is a “…race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.” Graham must be on to something. Trump should not only be judged by what he says but also by the company he keeps. It’s not only what you say; it’s what you do. “Who will render to every man according to his deeds…” Romans 2:6 

Will Trump become like Zavimbi, Mobutu and Marcos before him; the next despot client that Manafort can place in his “winners’ category?

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Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Leon,” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com        © 2016 InfoWave Communications, LLC