"I heard he was a terrible student. Not like OK. I heard he was a bad student. How does a bad student then go to Columbia, then go to Harvard. How does this happen?"
Donald Trump, regarding Obama: April, 2011
Trump is getting sloppy with his dog whistling.
 |
| Trump is getting more overt |
News reports from the White House say that Trump is feeling increased frustration with the Mueller investigation.
Donald Junior has been pulled into the mess and Trump's message has had to change from "no collusion" to "collusion isn't a crime." He looked bad in Helsinki and his national security people got together openly to disagree with him.
Trump looks troubled but he has the one thing he needs, his rock solid base of support, and he has given the two sides of it the one-two punch. To the wealthy trickle-down conservatives he is giving a capital gains tax cut, a policy in which 97% of the gains go to the top one percent of taxpayers. And to the populist base of voters he gives affirmation of their racial resentment, more clearly and openly than ever before.
 |
| Click for short video |
Trump talks in code, but he is getting more overt and careless.
As Donald Trump transitioned to presidential politics he spoke boldly about something wildly improbable. He said Barrack Obama's birth records in Hawaii and his admission to Ivy League schools were both illegitimate. His education and the presidency itself was undeserved. Voters shouldn't respect Obama. He is fake. He was taking the place of someone else, someone deserving.
Trump did not need evidence. He needed skepticism and indignation, and those emotions landed on fertile soil among many voters. Who was Obama, to have risen so high? Fox News loved the story. The clip is a typical example of Trump's message, back in 2011. Trump continued with the same message through the campaign.
 |
| Click for short video |
Last year Trump criticized NFL players for protesting police profiling of blacks by "taking a knee" during the National anthem. He called them disloyal. He said they should be fired. Was there a racial component to his criticism of protest against racial profiling of blacks? Some thought it an obvious smack down of uppity blacks. Others thought it was about decorum and the national anthem. It was a dog whistle.
Recently Trump has upped the volume, targeting two prominent blacks, Maxine Waters and LeBron James.
Now he isn't hinting or talking about affirmative action. Now he is going straight to it, focusing on one thing: "Low IQ, low IQ."
"Maxine. She's a real beauty. Maxine. Low IQ."
He has been saying it repeatedly for two weeks, and in Montana he posited details: "I said it the other day, yes, she is a low IQ individual, Maxine Waters. I said it the other day. High.--I mean honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe that."
Now he isn't hinting or talking about affirmative action. Now he is going straight to it, focusing on one thing: "Low IQ, low IQ."
"Maxine. She's a real beauty. Maxine. Low IQ."
He has been saying it repeatedly for two weeks, and in Montana he posited details: "I said it the other day, yes, she is a low IQ individual, Maxine Waters. I said it the other day. High.--I mean honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe that."
The audiences cheer and applaud.
Late this week Trump picked a new target, LeBron James, and black newsman Don Lemon, with the same critique: intelligence. Trump tweeted "Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. I like Mike!"
The "Mike" reference is to Michael Jordan, a person whose basketball talent is compared to James'.
James may well be a billionaire himself, and a self-made one. He is respected by basketball fans, and is so dominant that he creates his own backlash, rather like the old tradition of cheering against the ever-fearsome baseball Yankees. Why criticize LeBron James? Why suggest he has low intelligence?
There is a pattern. Dumb blacks. Uppity but dumb.Trump de-legitimizes black achievement. Yeah, Obama is president but he cheated on his birth certificate and got into Harvard despite terrible grades--what a phony. Yes, she's a congresswoman but she has the IQ of a moron--she got votes but she's a nobody. Yes, LeBron can play basketball but he is really stupid, so he isn't a genuine person of respect.
Is this working for Trump? I think not. It is too overt. He is showing his cards.
Melania Trump did clean-up, with a letter praising LeBron James' work with at-risk kids in Akron. It may have been coordinated with her husband, but possibly not. In any case, it highlighted the contrast between two potential views of James: respect for his talent and generosity-- or contempt for his illegitimate fame, fortune, and capacity to do charitable work.
Trump was on the side of showing open contempt for this towering black man.
He finds an audience for that. Blacks have had it easy. Blacks get all the breaks.
Trump is making it easy to see what he is doing.
Trump is making it easy to see what he is doing.
9 comments:
Everything you’ve mentioned here plays expertly well with his base. Particularly the angry mobs that are showing up at rallies, where he makes many of these outlandish statements that then get covered by the media and then the message becomes some viral tweet storm. Our reaction also plays very well to his base, so we have a never ending loop of engagement opportunities for fired-up trump supporters.
In the mean time, all this outrageousness keeps us distracted from engaging our own voters. Only 28% of young people - who would likely vote Dem - say they will vote, because they don’t see a reason to do so. They are demoralized by all the awful things they hear.
We have to stop giving him so much attention for the bad behavior. He gets enough from his own crowd. What happens on twitter and at the rallies shouldn’t be headline news.
We need to direct attention to issues that wil get voters engaged beyond pointing out how outrageous and disastrous trump’s racism is. It seems to be a point well taken and it’s not proving to be enough to motivate people to vote. One would not think this would be the case - but we are not living in normal times.
Trump's racism is well documented. This is not so much breaking news as the fact that no Republican is speaking out either to defend Waters or James or even criticize the attacks...that's remarkable. I watched all the Sunday shows this morning and it wasn't even mentioned. This to me is more troubling than even what Trump said. Same with attacks on the free press and justice system. This goes beyond hyperbole and flirts with incitement. I hope not but if it happens, how will they not be complicit?
What concerns me is that we are becoming The collective frog in the pot. Each incremental step he takes is normalized making the next step Seem less audacious. I don’t see any significant opposition to the trend. It’s very possible he is Russia’s best tool to dismantle the US from within, and with that, any real obstacle (a.k.a. our former alliances) to Vlad’s global agenda.
I’d like to see some better strategy on responding to this so that we avoid normalizing this horrific racism that’s become rampant, while not falling in to the trap of being just the reactionary “anti-trump” party. If it does look like all we can talk about is how terrible trump is, and how terrible the Republicans are for following in step with him, then what are we offering up as the alternative? It’s such a difficult situation to be in - we can’t just ignore this. And yet we need to find some focused, positive messsges and a platform that will engage enough Dems/Independents to vote them all out.
Post a Comment