• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the full show

GUEST: Robert Jensen, professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of several books.

With just a week left before the Iowa caucus, Republican front runner Donald Trump is so confident of himself that he made an outrageous statement: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, ok? It’s, like, incredible.”

Trump’s normalizing of fascistic language has been the most dangerous aspect of this election. He has come under fire for retweeting posts from a white supremacist, pro-Nazi who posts under the handle @WhiteGenocideTM. Most recently he retweeted a photoshopped image showing himself flipping a switch on a gas chamber that held Jewish candidate Bernie Sanders.* And, Trump’s mixed-race spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson recently tweeted, “Obama’s dad born in Africa, Mitt Romney’s dad born in Mexico. Any pure breeds left?”

The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has accused mainstream media executives of encouraging Trump in order to generate more ratings and hence more dollars.

* ERRATUM: Trump did not retweet a photo of Sanders in the gas chamber, but retweeted another tweet from the creator of the gas chamber photo. More details here: http://www.snopes.com/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-gas-chamber