Photo credit: Shealah Craighead
President Donald J. Trump walks from the Oval Office to the South Lawn of the White House Wednesday, July 17, 2019, on his way to board Marine One to begin his trip to North Carolina.
Just a few short years ago, nobody would have imagined the president of the United States would ever spew incredibly vile, racist insults to inflame hatred among his white supporters for black and brown Americans. But today, absolutely no one was surprised when Donald Trump spouted his latest version of “send ’em back to Africa” or whatever crime-infested country they came from to attack four accomplished young congresswomen of color who were elected to oppose Trump’s vicious, bigoted presidency.
Never mind that all four are U.S. citizens. Three of them—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan—are native born Americans. Ocasio-Cortez’s parents were Puerto Rican and Tlaib’s were Palestinian. Tlaib and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota were the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, making them targets of both Trump’s religious and racial bigotry.
Omar fled for her life from civil war in Somalia when she was eight years old and lived four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before her family resettled in the U.S. After escaping life-threatening peril and hardship to become a naturalized U.S. citizen at 17, Omar says, “I probably love this country more than anyone that is naturally born.”
Patriotic Americans from Many Lands
Trump doesn’t understand nonwhite immigrants who endure horrors to reach the U.S. becoming deeply patriotic, contributing Americans. The narcissist Trump thinks anyone who criticizes him must hate America. Just the opposite. They’re far more likely to support the American ideals of equal rights and opportunities for everyone regardless of race, religion or national origin. These ideals are contained in the Constitutional protections that Trump wants to dismantle.
The harrowing violence that drove Omar and her family from Somalia increased the cruelty of the ugly chant of “Send her back! Send her back!” that erupted at Trump’s North Carolina hate rally when he attacked Omar by name. Later, for a fleeting moment, Trump tried to distance himself from the appalling inhumanity he’d unleashed. Trump said he disagreed with the crowd. (Why? They simply shouted back what he suggested.) Trump also claimed he started speaking very quickly to cut off their ugly chant. No, he didn’t. Anyone watching the video saw Trump smirk through a long pause until the angry chant began to die down.
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With those lies out of the way, Trump immediately returned to describing that hateful, jeering mob as “incredible people…incredible patriots.” When reporters asked if Trump was concerned white supremacists were celebrating his attacks on people of color, Trump responded: “It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me. A lot of people love it, by the way.”
Neo-Nazi Supporters
Boy, they sure do. Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin was so thrilled he posted on the Daily Stormer website: “Man, President Trump’s Twitter account has been pure fire lately. This might be the funniest thing he’s ever tweeted. This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for.”
Richard Spencer organized the violent 2017 white supremacist rally terrorizing Charlottesville, Va., that Trump praised for including some “very fine people.” Spencer welcomed Trump back to the fight for the ethnic cleansing of America. “With a single tweet,” Spencer said, “Trump was able to win back the sizeable deluded portion of the Alt-Right, eager to take another trip on the merry-go-round.”
There’s really nothing new about Trump’s latest public confirmation of his blatant racism. Trump’s actions have spoken even louder than his despicable words from the moment he rode down that escalator running for president on the promise of protecting Americans from immigrant Mexican murderers and rapists. Every few months as president, Trump throws more accelerant on the fires of racial hatred to maintain his support from closet racists as well as very public ones like Spencer and Klansman David Duke whose votes Republicans now depend upon to win elections.
The House resolution condemning Trump’s racist attacks on nonwhite immigrants, refugees and congresswomen—supported by only four Republican congressmen—noted President Ronald Reagan boasted in his final speech as president that, in America, “we draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world and…continuously renew and enrich our nation.” Trump intentionally holds immigrants including children in squalid, inhumane conditions to discourage others from seeking asylum here and is currently considering cutting acceptance of refugees to zero.
Most Americans have never supported Trump. He won the presidency with 46% of vote and nearly three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. His approval ratings continue in the 40s and often dip into the 30s. Trump can’t order more than half of the country to go back where they came from. The other problem Republicans have is many of their voters don’t want to be considered racists even if they are. Many of them insist they’re decent people who would never vote for a racist. And no one can pretend Trump’s not a racist anymore.
