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 them, 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 2011 that it would be thus.
Trump, I wrote, had exposed himself as a self-deluding, racist demagogue. I even urged the rich folks who patronize his resorts and condos to shun him… just as they would a two-bit racist like David Duke.
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 their righteous indignation. After all, 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 arrived here as refugees when she was just 12.
Therefore, it’s arguable that Trump is hurling racist bile at these congresswomen for a reason. 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. As I argued in 2017, his presidency has always been more MALO than MAGA. His pathological intent to Make America Loathe Obama explains everything from his crusade against Obamacare to his decertifying Obama’s Iran nuclear deal… against the advice of his own national security team.
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: I noted in March that they’ve already abandoned their faith and values to hail him as chosen by God.
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 Jong-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: iPINIONS has 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 mean, as opposed to race-baiting tweets that are obviously intended to rile up his political base.
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