Tag: Trump racism

Why My Friend Trump’s Hate Speech Is So Toxic

When I was an undergraduate at Princeton University during the height of the Vietnam War, surrounded by fellow students who condemned it and even some who left the country to avoid fighting in it, the mantra used by its supporters was, “America, love it or leave it.” In my misguided “Bomb Hanoi” youth, I uttered this phrase, which I now detest.

The phrase itself — with its command of the government’s way or the highway — admits of no dissenting opinions, suggests that all is well and proper here and insinuates that moral norms and cultural values cannot be improved. The phrase itself is un-American.

That era also produced such hate-filled catchphrases as: “Hey, hey, LBJ; how many kids did you kill today?” Those post-JFK and pre-Watergate times were harsh and bitter as the nation was deeply divided over a war we now all know was useless and based on deception and fraud.

View the complete July 27 article by Andrew Napolitano on the National Memo website here.

White House aides panicked Trump’s descent into overt racism is about to blow up in his face: report

AlterNet logoAccording to a report in the New York Times, White House officials held a frantic meeting on Monday attempting to figure out a way to rein in Donald Trump’s increasing use of overt racist rhetoric — but that no one was sure how to tell him.

After a weekend of attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the Times reports “Several White House officials expressed agreement during a senior staff meeting on Monday morning that the president’s attacks were a bad move.”

According to sources, the members of the meeting arrived at their conclusion but “they were uncertain who could intervene with him — or if anyone would even dare try.”

View the complete July 30 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

From Baltimore to Africa: Trump’s global guide to places no human would want to live

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s description of Baltimore as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” over the weekend followed a pattern that has become familiar: In an attempt to undermine a political opponent, the president disparages an entire place — often in racially insensitive tones.

Trump has sharply criticized Chicago, Oakland, Ferguson, Mo., and San Francisco in the United States. But that same pattern has played out abroad as well, where entire nations or continents were insulted by the president.

The most prominent example of a nation that has found itself repeatedly targeted by Trump is Mexico. During his campaign, Trump falsely claimed that Mexico sends “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” to the United States.

View the complete July 29 by Rick Noack on The Washington Post website here.

Republican Mark Meadows hammered for remaining silent while Trump attacks his ‘best friend’ Elijah Cummings

AlterNet logoOn Monday morning, a CNN panel called out Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who has called Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) one of his best friends, for remaining silent as Donald Trump called Cummings a racist and accused him of corruption.

Showing a clip of Cummings rushing to Meadow’s defense during a Michael Cohen hearing after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) accused him of racism, “New Day” host Alisyn Camerota slammed the GOP in general, but Meadows in particular.

“Where are the Republicans?” Camerota exclaimed. “Where are the Republican colleagues of Elijah Cummings who have worked with him? Where is Congressman Mark Meadows who would have us believe that Elijah Cummings is a dear friend of his?”

View the complete July 29 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump allies defend attacks on Cummings amid Democratic denunciations

The Hill logoPresident Trump‘s critics on Sunday called his attacks on House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) racist while the president’s allies defended him and Trump himself doubled down on his remarks.

It was the second Sunday in a row to be dominated by a debate over an attack by the president on a lawmaker of color and his record on racial issues.

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the tweets, in which Trump called Cummings’ majority-black district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live,” had “absolutely zero to do with race.”

View the complete July 28 article by Zack Budryk on The Hill website here.

‘I didn’t do the tweets, Chuck’: GOP senator sputters as he shamefully ducks question on Trump’s racism

AlterNet logoShowing exactly the kind of spinelessness that has become expected in the modern GOP, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida refused to condemn President Donald Trump’s newest racist attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday morning.

Host Chuck Todd pressed Scott on the president’s weekend tweets about Cummings. As the chair of the House Oversight Committee, the Maryland Democrat has been a leading critic of the president, the White House, and the administration, recently pushing for subpoenas of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s emails and criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for the abominable conditions in which it detains migrants. In what was widely interpreted as a brazenly racist attack, Trump lashed out at Cummings on Saturday and Sunday:

Todd correctly linked this to Trump’s other recent racist attacks (while pointedly avoiding the term “racist”) and pushed for Scott to respond.

View the complete article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Baltimore Sun to Trump: Better to have a few rats than to be one

Axios logoThe Baltimore Sun denounced President Trump Saturday for his Twitter attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and the majority-black Baltimore-area district he represents — which Trump called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

The big picture: In an article titled “Better to have a few rats than to be one,” the editorial board of the Maryland paper, one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S., wrote that it’s heartening to see public figures such as “native daughter” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young defend the city.

  • The board said it wished to remind Trump that “the White House has far more power to effect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress” —including Cummings. It left its most scathing rebuke toward the end of the article.

“[W]e would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are ‘good people’ among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post.”

View the complete July 28 article by Rebecca Falconer on the Axios website here.

What Child Detentions At The Border Are Telling Us

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Grimms’ fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. Terrified by cruel conditions at home, the brother and sister flee, winding their way, hungry and scared, through unknown woods. There, they encounter an old woman who lures them in with promises of safety. Instead, she locks one of them in a cage and turns the other into a servant, as she prepares to devour them both.

Written in nineteenth-century Germany, it should resonate eerily in today’s America. In place of Hansel and Gretel, we would, of course, have to focus on girls and boys by the hundreds fleeing cruelty and hunger in Central America, believing that they will find a better life in the United States, only to be thrown into cages by forces far more powerful and agents much crueler than that wicked old woman. In the story, there are no politics; there is only good and bad, right and wrong.

Rather than, as in that fairy tale, register the suffering involved in the captivity and punishment of those children at the U.S.-Mexican border, the administration has chosen a full-bore defense of its policies and so has taken a giant step in a larger mission: redefining (or more precisely trying to abolish) the very idea of human rights as a part of this country’s identity.

View the complete July 27 by Karen Greenberg on the National Memo website here.

Trump campaign sees political advantage in a divisive appeal to working-class white voters

Washington Post logoPresident Trump launched another broadside Saturday on a Democratic political opponent, calling a prominent black congressman’s Baltimore district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and saying “no human being would want to live there.”

That Twitter attack on Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) plunged the nation into yet another anguished debate over the president’s divisive rhetoric. And it came just two weeks after Trump called out four minority congresswomen with a racist go-back-to-your-country taunt.

The assault on Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, prompted immediate condemnations from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. Young and several other top Democrats.

View the complete July 27 article by Toluse Olorunnipa and Ashley Parker on The Washington Post website here.