A few months ago, I wrote a lengthy post describing the various ways that I found Donald Trump’s deplorable campaign to feel eerily reminiscent to that of a circa-1920s Adolf Hitler. As I wrote and rewrote my post describing the way that both of them tugged very similar chords within a very similar group of people, I just couldn’t find happiness with the wording. At its core, no matter how you slice it, I’m essentially calling someone ‘Hitler’ which has become a lazy shorthand among ignorant people for ‘someone with whom I disagree strongly.’

I am revisiting that post though, because, in light of recent events—notably assertions that Trump is not against Muslims having to carry a special ID, being placed in a database, and possibly being rounded up into special camps. I don’t know if I can word it reasonably, but I am feeling more and more like it needs to be said.

I’m tempted to end this post with some pithy statement about Trump or some hyperbolic statement about the IQ of his supporters, but instead, I’d like to end with this thought:

If you consider Trump’s (or to a lesser degree Carson’s, Cruz’s, or Bush’s) point of view to be reflective of your own, I would invite you to consider for a moment what the emotional backing for that support might be. Decisions made out of fear, or outrage, or anger—misplaced or otherwise—have never gone especially well for any nation that has mired itself in them. It feels good to lash out, it feels good to have someone to hate or blame, it feels good to be the victim…but the cost is to high to leave those thoughts un-inspected.