Photo credit: D. Myles Cullen
U.S. President Donald Trump walks alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg
When Donald Trump, as President of the United States, embarrasses every decent person in America by spewing vile, obscene, racist insults denigrating people of color throughout the world, our political system can no longer simply choose sides based on political party.
Sadly, there was absolutely nothing surprising about the report of Trump erupting in an ignorant, racist rant against allowing black and brown immigrants from African nations, Haiti or Central America into our country. “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump demanded according to witnesses. Instead, he said, we should encourage immigration from white countries such as Norway. “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out!”
Three days after the remarks sparked an international uproar, Trump suddenly totally denied making them. But he didn’t deny them when they were initially reported, and Trump is a notorious liar, anyway. Washington Post fact-checkers have documented an average of 5.6 lies a day ever since he took office.
Bi-Partisan Witnesses
Witnesses confirming the remarks included both Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who were meeting with Trump to present a bipartisan Senate proposal on immigration. Besides, everyone in America knows racism is the (usually) unspoken subtext of the vicious stream of discriminatory policies based on race and religion Trump regularly champions to attract support—not only from less educated, white, working-class supporters—but also from actual members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi white supremacists whose ranks at a deadly, violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump praised as including “some very fine people.”
By making the appalling depths of his racism profanely explicit, Trump has torn away the flimsy cover Republican politicians and many Trump supporters were hiding behind. It’s no longer possible for anyone in America to pretend they don’t know Trump is a virulent racist, but that hasn’t stopped Republican politicians from trying.
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Senators Durbin and Graham met with Trump to try to stop the deportation of 800,000 so-called “Dreamers”—young adults brought to the U.S. by undocumented parents as infants or very young children. Trump has threatened all of them with deportation by ending former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gave them protected status. When Durbin and Graham arrived, Trump had stacked the room with anti-immigration extremists, including Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte.
‘Hate-Filled, Vile and Racist’
Sen. Durbin was the first participant to confirm Trump’s “hate-filled, vile and racist” language to refer to the nations of Africa, Haiti and El Salvador. Sen. Graham confirmed the accuracy of Durbin’s account to several Republican colleagues, including his African American Republican colleague from South Carolina, Sen. Tim Scott. Durbin also credited Graham for directly rebuking Trump for his racist remarks. Graham declined to publicly repeat his criticism of Trump, saying “I said my piece directly to him yesterday. The president and all those attending the meeting know what I said and how I feel.”
It turns out Graham had way too much confidence in the ability of his fellow Republicans to remember the president using a foul-mouthed, racist slur and Graham objecting to it. Cotton and Perdue later issued an extremely carefully worded joint statement that claimed: “We do not recall the president saying those comments specifically.” They later stood by their befogged memories on Sunday talk shows. Seriously? Is it so routine for the president to use “shithole countries” to describe nations of color that they wouldn’t even notice? McCarthy and Goodlatte chose not to claim foggy memories. They’ve simply remained silent so far.
Wimpy responses to totally outrageous, unacceptable presidential statements and actions are now standard Republican practice. Before the election, House Speaker Paul Ryan dared to identify Trump’s attack on a Mexican American judge as “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” Now Ryan’s lamest of reactions to Trump calling all the nations of Africa “shithole countries” was simply that it’s “unfortunate, unhelpful.”
We know there are still deep, ugly strains of racism in our country; Trump’s election was a shocking reminder of how widespread it remains. But our country should never return to the openly racist time many of us remember from our youth when whites routinely used the most vicious, racist, dehumanizing epithets to refer to anyone of color, including innocent children. We can never rationalize the president of the United States openly feeding racial hatred.
There is no longer a Democratic or Republican side in the debate over Trump’s fitness for office; there is only the American side. It’s time for everyone in public office to stop supporting a despicable public racist. Those who cover for an obvious, open white supremacist shouldn’t be in public office. Trump’s supporters can no longer claim not to be racists themselves. People who support ugly racists are racist.
