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 America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.” 
 
 In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof. 
 
 This phenomenon is in fact nothing new. Politicians targeting minorities, foreigners or women have always existed in the culture. And every generation or so, at least one demagogue surfaces to fan those flames. 
 
 Here’s Donald Trump on Sunday: “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases. And we have no choice. We have no idea who’s being sent in here. This could be the — it’s probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time, where they come in.” 
 
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 Here’s Joseph McCarthy in 1950: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.” 
 
 Here’s Donald Trump last Tuesday: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” 
 
 Here’s George Wallace in 1963: “We must redefine our heritage, re-school our thoughts in the lessons our forefathers knew so well, in order to function and to grow and to prosper. We can no longer hide our head in the sand and tell ourselves that the ideology of our free fathers is not being attacked and is not being threatened by another idea ... for it is.” 
 
 Mr. Trump relies on social media to spread his views. This is convenient because there’s no need to respond to questions about his fabrications. That makes it imperative that other forms of media challenge him. 
 
 Instead, as Mr. Trump stays at the top of the Republican field, it’s become a full-time job just running down falsehoods like the phony crime statistics he tweeted, which came from a white supremacist group. 
 
 Yet Mr. Trump is regularly rewarded with free TV time, where he talks right over anyone challenging him, and doubles down when called out on his lies. 
 
 This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one. ||||| THE GROWING ugliness of Donald Trump’s campaign poses a challenge to us all. We have seen the likes of him before, in the United States and elsewhere: narcissistic bullies who rise to prominence by spreading lies, appealing to fears and stoking hatred. Such people are dangerous. 
 
 Like many Americans, our first inclination was to ignore Mr. Trump. The Huffington Post, you may recall, announced that it would feature him in its Entertainment section, not in its coverage of politics. He was a buffoon, a disseminator of ludicrous rumors about President Obama’s birthplace. He lacked the qualifications, experience or knowledge to be president. He was running to promote his brand. We wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 
 
 Our assessment of Mr. Trump was correct, but the tactical response was not. His popular support has hung steady at about 30 percent of Republicans, and his candidacy has tugged the debate toward divisiveness as his bigotry has drawn cheers and many of his rivals have strove to mimic him. Now some detractors opt again to disregard his lies, but for a different reason: Criticism from establishment politicians and tough questions from establishment journalists, it is feared, will only fuel his self-portrayal as the truth-telling outsider. 
 
 That may be so, but it cannot justify silence. Just in the past few days, Mr. Trump has repeated the lie that President Obama intends to admit 200,000 Syrian refugees; the correct number is 10,000. He spreads the lie that thousands of American Muslims openly celebrated the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center; in fact, there were no such celebrations. He tweeted a false statistic that blacks are responsible for 81 percent of murders of white victims; in fact, 82 percent of whites are killed by whites. 
 
 These are not random errors. All of them appeal to the basest instincts in supporters; they reinforce fears and prejudices. All of them, Mr. Trump knows by now even if he did not know when he first stated them, are false, but he does not care. The amplification of the lies is accompanied by growing intolerance in his campaign, with Mr. Trump praising supporters for beating a protestor, crudely denigrating anyone who challenges him and penning reporters into designated zones so that they cannot speak with his followers. And all of this matches the brutality of his policies: mass deportation of longtime U.S. residents, torture of foreign detainees, expulsion even of refugees who are here legally . 
 
 A few candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have spoken out against some of Mr. Trump’s more outlandish comments. Many more, sadly, duck and cover, hoping to avoid Mr. Trump’s insults or to ingratiate themselves with his backers. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is probably the most egregious of these second-rate flatterers, but he’s far from alone. Asked about the mythical cheering crowds, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, “I think if it had happened, I would remember it, but, you know, there could be things I forget, too.” 
 
 No, that is not something Mr. Christie would have forgotten, and he ought to say so. Other Republican leaders should speak up too: the speaker of the House and majority leader of the Senate, for example, and former president George W. Bush. The more reticent such leaders are, the more successfully Mr. Trump can brand their party and, to a disturbing extent, the nation with his demagoguery. The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to him. ||||| Donald Trump has accused a New York Times reporter of “grandstanding about his disability” as he denied mocking the journalist’s condition during a campaign speech. 
 
 Trump escalated his attack on reporter Serge Kovaleski and demanded an apology from his paper after it accused the Republican frontrunner of ridiculing Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that affects joint movement. 
 
 “I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovalski [sic], is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence,” Trump said in a statement issued by his campaign on Thursday afternoon. 
 
 “Despite having one of the all-time great memories, I certainly do not remember him. 
 
 “I don’t know if he is [Houston Texans defensive end] JJ Watt or Muhammad Ali in his prime – or somebody of less athletic ability.” 
 
 In a speech to supporters on Tuesday night, Trump derided Kovaleski, who has disputed Trump’s claim that he saw “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrate the 9/11 attacks – while flailing and twisting his arms. 
 
 Kovaleski worked for the Washington Post at the time of the 9/11 attacks and was one of the authors of an article that Trump has cited in support of his claim. The Washington Post has since added a disclaimer that fact-checks Trump’s claim. 
 
 In his Thursday statement, Trump said: “I know nothing about [Kovaleski] other than I have great respect for the way he wrote the story on 18 September 2001, and in particular the paragraph talking about Muslims and tailgate parties taking place in New Jersey.” 
 
 
 
 Trump later added to his statement, asking the paper to apologise to him for accusing him of mocking Kovaleski. He also reinforced his criticism of the Times in light of its business decisions and fortunes in terms of sales and readership. 
 
 “Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago – if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did,” Trump said. “He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes.” 
 
 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) I do not know the reporter for the @nytimes, or what he looks like. I was showing a person groveling to take back a statement made long ago! 
 
 Kovaleski covered Trump’s businesses as a reporter for the New York Daily News in the late 1980s and 1990s, and has met him several times. 
 
 “Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,” Kovaleski told the Times on Thursday. “I’ve interviewed him in his office. I’ve talked to him at press conferences. 
 
 “All in all, I would say around a dozen times I’ve interacted with him as a reporter while I was at the Daily News.” 
 
 Earlier this week, Kovaleski said he did not recall Trump’s account of what happened in Jersey City on 9/11. 
 
 “We did a lot of shoe leather reporting in and around Jersey City and talked to a lot of residents and officials for the broader story,” Kovaleski said on CNN. “Much of that has, indeed, faded from memory. 
 
 “I do not recall anyone saying there were thousands, or even hundreds, of people celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember.” 
 
 At the Tuesday rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Trump ridiculed Kovaleski, telling supporters: “Now the poor guy. You ought to see the guy: ‘Err, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember.’” 
 
 Jersey City: Trump's claims residents cheered on 9/11 are 'absolutely not true' Read more 
 
 As he spoke, Trump pulled his arms up to his chest and flailed about in what looked like an imitation of the journalist’s disability. 
 
 In his Thursday statement, Trump said he had not been aware of the journalist’s disability and “merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago”. 
 
 Kovaleski told the Washington Post: “The sad part about it is, it didn’t in the slightest bit jar or surprise me that Donald Trump would do something this low-rent, given his track record.” 
 
 A spokesperson for the New York Times told Politico: “We think it’s outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters.” 
 
 
 
 The controversy is the latest in a Trump campaign that has included a reference to Mexicans being “rapists”; an insinuation that Fox News host Megyn Kelly was particularly tough in her line of questioning in the first Republican debate because she was menstruating; and the removal of Univision journalist Jorge Ramos from a press conference after he pressed Trump on his immigration platform. 
 
 
 
 Despite the seemingly unending stream of controversies, which pundits agree would have derailed most candidates by now, Trump has maintained his standing at the top of the Republican polls, confounding the political establishment. 
 
 “This isn’t about shutting off Mr Trump’s bullhorn,” the New York Times editorial board wrote earlier this week. “His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. 
 
 “History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.”
– This may not displease Donald Trump, but he has most definitely drawn the ire of two media establishment heavyweights over recent comments on three issues in particular—his claim that big crowds were cheering the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey, that President Obama plans to bring in at least 200,000 Syrian refugees, and that African Americans are behind most white homicides. All are lies, say the newspapers, and both back up their use of that word. A sample of their scathing editorials: Washington Post: "The growing ugliness of Donald Trump's campaign poses a challenge to us all," write the editors. Trump is deliberately spreading lies and appealing "to the basest instincts in supporters," as "narcissistic bullies" always do. It's time for the virtual silence from his fellow candidates and GOP leaders to end. "The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to him." Full editorial is here. New York Times: The editorial draws comparisons between Trump's "racist lies" to statements uttered by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace. "His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it," write the editors. "History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one." Full editorial is here.