I remember the first time I felt the symptoms of airsickness well up inside me: My skin growing pale and the nausea of my stomach rolling as I reached for the airline barf bag. The baffled feeling afterward, trying to figure out what just happened.

Don’t worry; I’ve long since conquered my motion sickness, but that queasy feeling made a reappearance this week, and it sounded something like this: “Deal from strength or get crushed every time.”

In case you haven’t heard the Freedom Kids sing and frolic to the “Trump Jam” please, please grab your Vomibag and look up the video. As painful as it is for me to send prospective voters to a Donald Trump promotion, every single voting-eligible citizen needs to see this video to understand the freak show the 2016 GOP has become.

Trump debuted the trio of singing and dancing girls as his introduction to a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, on Jan. 13.

As easy as it is to throw out the Hitler and Kim Jung-Un comparisons, I can’t bring myself to do that. Maybe it is my stubbornness in still believing that there is absolutely no way in hell that man is a legitimate presidential candidate. Perhaps it is because those comparisons are based on an irrational fear that our government will turn into a fascist dictatorship.

Far more concerning than Trump himself is his campaign platform. Using the anger and constructed fears of the American people, he has ridden a nationalist wave of momentum far longer than anyone expected.

His hostility and racism read the textbook definition of ultra-nationalism, and the Freedom Kids were the latest example of this fanaticism. If we choose to ignore history, maybe these extreme ideals are exactly what America needs — to be great again.

Fortunately, far too many nationalist societies have shown this is not a healthy premise for governing. 1930s Germany is the first example that comes to mind, but we don’t even need to go back that far. The most recent nationalist surge in American history is a perfect example.
Where are the refugees Trump has condemned and stated we would reject in his presidency from? Where are the terrorists who are supposedly threatening our freedom from? And where did an American soldier die earlier this month in a war that was declared to be over?

The two countries we invaded post-9/11, that’s where. And if anyone says that either of those endeavors were a success, they are full of it.
The embrace of Trump’s campaign is a scary sight for this country. The use of these young girls is despicable but not unprecedented.
The “Trump Jam” stresses not being apologetic for our freedoms. But if fanatic absolutes are what we want in a president, is freedom actually free?