Trump's rallying cry: fear itself

By Karen Tumulty and David Nakamura February 3 at 7:28 PM

The machete-wielding man was quickly shot and arrested Friday morning by French police and soldiers, but from the vantage point of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was a crisis dire enough to put a nation 4,000 miles away on high alert.

“A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.,” President Trump tweeted.

French authorities are indeed investigating the incident as possible terrorism. But other than the critical wounding of the assailant, there were no injuries, except a slight cut to the scalp of a soldier.

Trump’s reaction to the Egyptian attacker who had shouted “God is great” in Arabic also stood in stark contrast to his public silence on the killing of six Muslim worshipers five days earlier at a mosque in Quebec City.

The episode spoke loudly to the fact that stoking fear — a strategy that helped get Trump elected — is emerging as a central part of how he plans to carry out his governing agenda.

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