I recently wrote about hate-filled town council meetings in Franklin, Tennessee in which residents were trying to stop this year's upcoming Pride festival in a public park.

Besides making absurd religious claims that "Satan" is using Pride to "infiltrate Franklin," several speakers asserted that trans people are dangerous and prone to gun violence. And, btw, the text in my story can't even come close to the raw hatred with those speakers expressed. Watching the video scared me to death.

Of course, those claims about violence or not true. No data shows that trans people are violent. Mountains of solid data show that trans people are highly disproportionate victims of violence.

But Trump says what he says with no basis in truth or data. He knows what his intensely conservative base want to hear, and he's going to feed it to them, in a sort of violent feedback loop that will certainly make the atmosphere in Franklin in places like it even scarier.

This is populism. This is demagoguery. This is how it happens.