Trump’s campaign of innuendo: Like many Republicans before him, Trump’s arguing through insinuation
"The main difference between Trump’s rhetoric and the standard issue Republican rhetoric is that Trump is less artful and more ham-fisted. He just isn’t as good as most at playing the “who, me?” game, and it’s made worse because he flies into a defensive rage when his efforts at pretending he’s not saying what he’s saying fail. This inability to be subtle about his bigotry has helped him win over huge sectors of the conservative base, who increasingly conflate Republican efforts at plausible deniability with kow-towing to “political correctness”, but it makes him seem like an artless buffoon to everyone else. But make no mistake, just because he’s bad at it doesn’t mean Trump isn’t trying to play the same game as many Republicans before him."