The unmistakable ugliness of Trump urging brown-skinned congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries

His tweet suggested his American-born critics are foreigners. And it wasn’t subtle.

The president of the United States on Sunday urged some women in Congress to go back to the countries from which they came. The problem — beyond the nasty historical overtones of such a sentiment, of course — is that three of the four women about whom he appeared to be talking were born in the United States.

Trump’s tweets on these kinds of things are often somewhat carefully crafted — enough to give him some plausible deniability. But it’s pretty clear this one was directed at three American-born congresswomen, as well as one refugee-turned-lawmaker, otherizing them and urging them to return to countries in which they weren’t born.

Here’s what Trump said:

“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,” Trump said.

View the complete July 14 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.