Donald Trump’s record of racism dates back decades. He sowed it in the 1970s in joint ventures with his daddy to discriminate against blacks seeking to rent in their apartment buildings.
And, with all due respect to his birther conspiracy, he reaped it most notoriously in the late 1980s in full-page newspaper ads, in which he called for the execution of the Central Park 5 (black men wrongly accused of beating and raping a white woman).
Therefore, nobody should have been surprised that he made hurling racist bile the feature of his 2016 presidential campaign. I duly warned – in “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker,” April 8, 2011 – that it would be thus:
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It’s one thing for Trump to be huffing and puffing all over the media about how he would demonstrate that he has far bigger balls than Obama (i.e., by acting on the world stage like a bull in a China shop). It’s quite another for this preternaturally self-obsessed shyster to be propagating racially divisive claims. And none is more so than his claim that Barack Obama is an African who perpetrated the biggest scam in history by getting elected president of the United States. …
We all knew that Trump was a self-aggrandizing buffoon. But he has now exposed himself as a self-deluding, racist demagogue as well.
This is why I urge all of the rich folks he depends on to patronize his eponymous resorts and buy up his eponymous condominiums to begin shunning him – just as they would a two-bit racist like KKK leader David Duke. I urge this especially of the black Hollywood and sports stars he likes to feature as extras in his one-man freak show.
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In fact, on the campaign trail, Trump seemed more interested in becoming the new wizard of the Ku Klux Klan than the next president of the United States. Yet it worked.
Therefore, nobody should be surprised that he has made racism the feature of his presidency. The following phrases alone speak volumes in this respect:
- The Wall
- Mexicans are rapists, criminals, drug dealers
- Muslim ban
- Hurricane Maria his Katrina
- Kneeling NFL players are sons of bitches
- Good people on both sides of Neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville
- Pocahontas
- Shithole countries
- Migrant family separation
Now he’s telegraphing his intent to make hurling racist bile the feature of his 2020 re-election campaign. Again, nobody should be surprised. After all, if it ain’t broke …
And so, championing policies related to real issues like war and peace, healthcare, livable wages, and mass migration be damned. Indeed, only this abiding feature explains the racist bile he hurled at “four congresswomen of color” (as opposed to four colored congresswomen…?) on Sunday:
So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. …
Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
The congresswomen he targeted call themselves “The Squad.” It includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Trump’s apologists/enablers would have you believe he only tweeted at them in frustration – as if frustration justifies racism. His frustration reportedly stemmed from the righteous indignation with which these congresswomen condemned the inept and inhumane way his administration is detaining thousands of migrants seeking asylum.
But there’s some poetic justice in Hillary Clinton having the best tweet in support of the squad:
They’re from America, and you’re right about one thing: Currently their government is a complete and total catastrophe.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 14, 2019
Ouch! It’s too bad Trump has no shame and is immune to charges of hypocrisy.
Still, others rightly scoffed at his projection. After all, three of the congresswomen he targeted were born in the USA; the other (Rep. Omar) became naturalized after her family emigrated from Somalia when she was just 12.
Therefore, it’s arguable that Trump is hurling racist bile at these congresswomen because he knows others have even greater “justification” to hurl it at members of his own family, including his immigrant wife Melania and her parents.
It is also noteworthy that he used the word “inept” to describe the phantom governments at issue. Because this is the damning word the UK ambassador to the United States famously used to describe his government in leaked cables. Trump’s psychopathology is such that he just can’t help projecting his myriad shortcomings onto others …
Incidentally, apropos of the racist birther conspiracy he demagogued against Obama, there was also this:
A U.K. newspaper has published more leaked memos revealing a British ambassador’s blunt assessments of the Trump administration, including one in which the envoy to Washington claimed President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal to spite predecessor Barack Obama.
In the May 2018 cable published by the Mail on Sunday, U.K. Ambassador Kim Darroch called Trump’s decision to abandon the international accord ‘an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for ideological and personality reasons’ because the pact ‘was Obama’s deal.’
(The Associated Press, July 14, 2019)
Again, nobody should be surprised; not least because here is what I wrote in “Trump Decertifying Iran Nuclear Deal more MALO than MAGA,” October 13, 2017:
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There’s no denying the dark force that is provoking nearly everything Trump does. That force, of course, is the enviable legacy of his predecessor, Barack Hussein Obama.
In fact, nothing has defined Trump’s beleaguered presidency quite like his unabashed efforts to nullify or undermine Obama’s achievements. …
Whatever Trump’s ambition to Make America Great Again (MAGA), it is no match for his pathological intent to Make America Loathe Obama (MALO). Only this explains his Mad-Hatter efforts to repeal and replace (or failing that to undermine) Obamacare, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
In any case, it’s impossible to overstate the danger inherent in Trump decertifying this Iran nuclear deal, Obama’s signature foreign-policy achievement. But it speaks volumes that the other signatories, Republican congressional leaders, and members of his own national security team are all warning him against doing so. This, in a nutshell, betrays the extent to which Trump will go to MALO. …
Again, if Trump were truly interested in keeping America safe, he would leave the deal in place – as every member of his national security has advised him to do. But, as it was with healthcare, climate change, international trade, and others:
Trump’s executive orders seem drafted to either whitewash or undermine Obama’s accomplishments. In fact, you could be forgiven for thinking that Trump has predicated his presidency on vindicating his birther conspiracy; you know, the one he peddled about Obama being an illegitimate interloper (a.k.a. an uppity African) who does not belong among the ranks of American presidents, certainly not in the top 10 – as Obama seems destined to be ranked.
(“Trump’s First 100 Days,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 1, 2017)
Congressional Republicans have been goading and enabling Trump in his Faustian quest to effectively decertify Obama’s presidency.
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So, if you were wondering if Trump would risk nuclear war to spite Obama, the answer is, yes! And, if he would do that, there’s clearly nothing he would not do to feed or soothe his fat but fragile ego.
This brings me to the law-and-order, bible-thumping Republicans who enable, when they’re not rationalizing, the racist bile Trump hurls. Because the real issue is whether they intend to become so complicit as to become co-conspirators in his norm-busting efforts to destroy American democracy. Hint: “Republicans Abandon Faith and Values to Hail Trump as ‘Chosen by God’,” March 6, 2019.
The Charlotte Observer went viral yesterday for headlining its editorial on Trump’s racist tweets with this question:
Are You OK With A Racist President, Republicans?
The problem is that, far from being provocative, this was as mundane as headlining an editorial on Kim Jung-un’s human rights abuses with the question:
Are You OK With A Dictatorial Leader, North Koreans?
Still, it is noteworthy that the Democrats who control the House of Representatives will give their Republican colleagues a chance for a little redemption today.
House Democrats plan to vote on a resolution that explicitly condemns President Trump’s tweets, in which he called for four progressive congresswomen to ‘go back’ to other countries, as racist.
(The Hill, July 15, 2019)
The vote on this resolution to condemn Trump will be the clearest indication yet of how complicit Republicans intend to remain in all of his high crimes and misdemeanors. But blind adherence to the tenets of Trumpism has so corrupted their political and moral compasses, I’d be shocked if any more than 10 of 197 House Republicans vote to condemn him.
After all, Trumpism prizes loyalty to Trump above all else. Never mind that the more Republicans betray their principles (and even their religious faith) to give it, the more Trump treats them with utter contempt. Sadly, this is how far Republicans have lost their way.
Note: I have criticized cable news for reporting every one of Trump’s asinine and all-too-predictable tweets as breaking news. But I fear I’m doing no better by commenting on those reports. Accordingly, I shall refrain henceforth from doing so – unless the tweet at issue pertains to policy (i.e., as opposed to race-baiting tweets that are obviously intended to rile up his political base).
Related commentaries:
Trump for president…
UK ambassador resigns…
MAGA vs MALO…
Republicans abandon faith…
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