Donald Trump is a lunatic. But the West really does have a homegrown terror problem.

Don't let Trump's downright racist bluster obscure this fact: The West has a legitimate problem with assimilation among Muslim immigrants and their descendants

Donald Trump
(Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

When Donald Trump called for ending Muslim entry into the United States, the negative reaction from the rest of the Republican presidential contenders was swift and nearly unanimous. Perhaps the most emphatic came from low-polling Sen. Lindsey Graham, who called Trump a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot."

Graham has actually made similar comments before, including last week while narrating the bizarre spectacle of a reporter sifting through the San Bernardino shooters' apartment on live television. Then, Graham suggested that Trump's rhetoric about Islam risked repelling the Muslim allies we need in the fight against ISIS. But predictably, the South Carolinian also said the most important thing in combatting terrorism is defeating caliphates and would-be caliphates on the battlefield overseas.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.