Not that this should come as a surprise, but with the Republican National Convention less than a week away, Donald Trump is sending every possible signal that whatever its official themes may be the GOP gathering’s true subject will be white grievance politics. Unlike in the past, where concerns about not appearing overtly racist have forced Republicans to resort to dog whistles and coded language, Trump seems to believe to that his best bet is to serve the racism straight up, thereby vanquishing any remaining doubts about whether our president is actually a white supremacist.
Late Tuesday night, Trump praised Laura Loomer, who won the Republican primary in Florida’s 21st congressional district, which is Trump’s official place of residence. To call Loomer a “far right” or “fringe” candidate is understating the case. She’s an obsessive bigot with a long history of unvarnished hatred of Muslims — or anyone she just suspects may be a Muslim — calling them “savages” and labeling herself a #ProudIslamophobe. Her rhetoric is openly genocidal, such as when she declared that “we should never let another Muslim into the civilized world” and urged taxi and ride-share companies not to hire Muslim drivers. (It may be reassuring to know that she almost certainly won’t win in November. The district is solidly Democratic, and Republicans didn’t even bother to run a candidate against incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel in 2018.)
Loomer has been banned by both Uber and Lyft for this overt bigotry, and then was banned from Twitter after tweeting about Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat who is one of two Muslim women in the House: “Ilhan is pro Sharia Ilhan is pro-FGM Under Sharia, homosexuals are oppressed & killed. Women are abused & forced to wear the hijab.” Continue reading.