Tag: trump racist tweet
Why My Friend Trump’s Hate Speech Is So Toxic

Why My Friend Trump’s Hate Speech Is So Toxic

“Now hatred is by far the Longest pleasure;

“Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.”

— George Gordon, Lord Byron

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.

We know from the publication of the Pentagon Papers that the incidents President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed justified the war never occurred, and the president and some of his generals regularly lied to the American public about the war.

The lies and deceptions — combined with the military draft and the deaths of 58,000 Americans — produced much hatred. The hatred was for people, rather than ideas. It was generational and ideological. Youth hated age. Long hair hated short hair. Conservatives hated liberals. Many people hated LBJ personally. When President Gerald R. Ford ended the war — though in a colossal defeat — the end produced a great national relief because the national hatred of people was over.

Now, that hatred is back.

I have known President Donald Trump personally since 1986. The private Trump I have known is funny, charming and embracing. That is not the public Trump of today. When he loudly called for four members of Congress — women of color who oppose nearly all his initiatives and who have questioned his fitness for office — to go back to the places from which they came, he unleashed a torrent of hatred.

The “Go back” trope was used by white racists toward African Americans for 100 years, from Reconstruction to the civil rights era, suggesting repulsively that they should go “back” to Africa; never mind their American births. It was uttered by the establishment at my grandfathers and many others who came here from southern Europe as children in the early days of the last century.

“Go back” is a rejection of the nation as a melting pot; a condemnation of one of America’s founding values — E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one). It implicates a racial or nativist superiority: We were here before you; this is our land, not yours; get out. Nativist hatred is an implication of moral or even legal superiority that has no constitutional justification in American government.

All working in government in America have taken an oath to support the Constitution. The Constitution commands equal protection of the laws by government at all levels. No one is above the laws’ obligations and no one is beneath the laws’ protections. The Constitution not only commands of government both racial neutrality and color blindness, it generally prohibits government officials from making distinctions among people on the basis of immutable characteristics.

So, when the president defies these moral and constitutional norms and tells women of color to “Go back,” he raises a terrifying specter.

The specter is hatred not for ideas he despises but for the people who embrace those ideas. The specter is also a dog whistle to groups around the country that hatred is back in fashion and is acceptable to articulate publicly. Don’t get me wrong. Even though hate speech — speech which expresses hatred for people, as opposed to hatred for ideas — stings and hurts, it is constitutionally protected. The remedy for hate speech is not to silence the hater but to shame him. And the most effective way to do that is with more speech.

But when the hate speech comes from a shameless president, we have a problem.

The problem is that presidential hatred produces division among people and destroys peaceful dialogue. When thousands of people at a Trump rally in North Carolina recently chanted, “Send her back” — a reference to the four congresswomen to whom Trump stated “Go back” — the inescapable image was of a president trying to divide rather than unite.

At first, he welcomed the chants. Then, two days later, he distanced himself from those who chanted. Then, three days after that, he praised the chanters. When a Louisiana police officer tweeted that one of the congresswomen Trump targeted deserved a round — he was referring to a bullet — he and a supportive colleague were fired. And in New York City, hatred for cops has led to group assaults on them, along racial lines.

Hatred is so volatile and destructive that, once unleashed, it takes on a life of its own. It is cover for our deepest and darkest instincts. And it is a cousin to violence, as those Louisiana and Manhattan cops know.

It also captivates our attention. Could that be the president’s wish — that we think about hatred of his targets rather than the testimony of Robert Mueller, who spent two years investigating the president and now has beans to spill?

This business of the hatred of people is so dangerous because to some, as Lord Byron wrote, hatred is perversely pleasing. It gives them shelter in a mob, it lets them hurl venom with anonymity, and it regenerates itself. It must be rejected loudly in all its forms — especially when it comes from the president.

Democrats: Trump’s Racist Tirades Endanger Omar, Ocasio-Cortez

Democrats: Trump’s Racist Tirades Endanger Omar, Ocasio-Cortez

Trump’s racist attacks on four progressive congresswomen could be putting their lives in danger, members of Congress told Politico Thursday morning.

“It’s bad enough that the president didn’t stop the chant last night,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) said. “But he started it. It’s instilling fear, it’s going to instill violence.”

Lujan was referring to the racist chant from the Wednesday Trump campaign rally, where the audience chanted “Send her back!” after Trump recited his familiar smears of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a Somali-born U.S. citizen.

“It’s crystal clear to me that her life is in imminent danger,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Politico. “He has threatened the safety of a member of Congress.”

Trump’s racist tirades have focused on Omar and three other women of color: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Trump kicked off his attacks on the congresswomen on Sunday, declaring they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.”

Trump employs, and his supporters embraced, a long-used racist trope of telling people of color to “go back” to another country to falsely imply that some Americans, based on the color of their skin, are somehow less American than white citizens.

“The president’s comments are extremely dangerous to any person that looks like me,” Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) said. She added that Trump’s actions show “that he frankly doesn’t give a damn about the safety of Americans.”

When asked on Thursday about safety concerns, Ocasio-Cortez told a Politico reporter that “of course” she is worried.

“I think part of the point is to target us. This president is evolving, as predicted, deeper into the rhetoric of racism which evolves into violence,” she said.

Along with Ocasio-Cortez and the other targets of Trump’s hateful rhetoric, Omar refuses to back down. “I am where I belong, at the people’s house and you’re just gonna have to deal!” Omar said on Twitter Wednesday night, along with a photo of herself presiding over the House of Representatives.

As Omar refuses to back down, other members expressed disgust at Trump’s attacks.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) described Trump’s tirade as “dangerous, obscene, racist, disgusting, quite frankly un-American.”

Hate crimes have increased during Trump’s tenure in office, and Democrats targeted by Trump’s attacks have also been threatened. In April, for example, a 55-year-old man was arrested and charged with threatening to murder Omar. Trump’s increasingly heated and racist rhetoric could further embolden his supporters and endanger the subjects of Trump’s verbal assaults.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

New Poll: Majority Says Trump’s Racist Attack Is ‘Un-American’

New Poll: Majority Says Trump’s Racist Attack Is ‘Un-American’

Just hours after Republicans voted almost unanimously in favor of Trump’s racist attack on four Democratic congresswomen, a new poll shows that most Americans consider Trump’s actions to be “un-American.”

On Tuesday, 187 House Republicans refused to vote for a resolution condemning Trump for telling the congresswoman to “go back” to where they came from. All of the women are of color and American citizens.

The measure passed with the support of the entire Democratic caucus. Only four Republicans voted for it, along with newly independent Rep. Justin Amash (MI).

USA Today/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday revealed that Republicans are extremely out of touch with how most Americans feel — 59 percent of the people responding to the poll said Trump’s attack was “un-American.

“Two-thirds of those surveyed, 65 percent, said that telling minority Americans to ‘go back where they came from’ was a racist statement,” USA Today reported.

The sentiment stands in stark contrast to senior Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who insisted that Trump’s racist comment was not racist.

Advisers close to Trump’s reelection campaign told the press on Tuesday that they believed the racist attacks could help to motivate bigots to turn out to vote for Republicans.

That likely explains why Republicans won’t rebuke Trump’s racism despite how far outside of American opinion the Republican position is. The party tried a similar tactic during the 2018 midterms, but the reliance on racist voters ended up with the GOP losing control of the House.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose Trump and his racism, echoing the Democratic position and putting Republicans outside the mainstream of national opinion.

 

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Angry Kellyanne Conway Demands To Know Reporter’s ‘Ethnicity‘

Angry Kellyanne Conway Demands To Know Reporter’s ‘Ethnicity‘

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

As President Donald Trump is still being hammered under the firestorm he started with his racist attacks on Democratic lawmakers, Kellyanne Conway dug the White House in even deeper on Tuesday in a combative exchange with a reporter.

Speaking in the White House driveway, reporter Andrew Feinberg of Breakfast Media asked Conway what the president was referring to when he said that progressive lawmakers — three out of four of whom were born in the United States — should “go back” to their countries.

In response, Conway demanded to know the reporter’s ethnicity.

“What’s your ethnicity?” she said.

“Why is that relevant?” Feinberg responded, taken aback.

“No, no — because I’m asking a question,” she said, doubling down on her shocking question. “My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy.”

“My own ethnicity is not relevant to the question I’m asking,” said Feinberg.

“No, it is,” Conway said, digging her heels in on her outrageous demand. “Because you’re asking about — he said ‘originally.’ He said ‘originally from.’”

She seemed to be implying that it was reasonable for the president to tell Democratic congresswoman — all of whom are people of color — to go back to the countries of their ancestors. Conway’s claim, though, that this is somehow implied in the phrase “originally from” is just wrong. She is not “originally from” Ireland or Italy if she wasn’t born there and never lived there. And even if she had been born elsewhere, it would still be wildly inappropriate to tell her that as an American citizen that she should now go back. And of course, the fact that the president made his claims originally about women of color, implying they don’t really belong in the United States, is a demonstration of outright racist bigotry.

Conway’s demand to know a reporter’s ethnicity just because he is asking a question about the president’s remarks is likewise wildly inappropriate. If her point was to demonstrate that most or many Americans can trace their heritage to another country as a defense of Trump’s wildly racist attack, she’s layering an offensive demand on top of a desperate defense of the president’s bigotry.

Feinberg also noted:

After Feinberg repeatedly made clear that her question was inappropriate, Conway seemed to realize that she may have crossed a line and overcompensated by lashing out.

“A lot of us are sick and tired in this country of America coming last to people who swore an oath of office!” she said. “Sick and tired of our military being denigrated. Sick and tired of the Customs and Border Protection people I was with — who were overwhelmingly Hispanic, by the way, in McAllen, Texas — sick and tired of them — no, you don’t understand, ’cause you didn’t go! — being criticized. Being doxxed! By a bunch of Hollywood D-listers who have nothing else to do but sit on their asses on Twitter all day and try to dox brave men and women who are diving into the Rio Grande to save people who are drowning. Who are taking other people’s babies into custody! And diapering them and feeding them.”

At that, Conway had clearly lost all perspective, demanding that CBP be thanked for taking away babies from parents and separating families.

Watch the clip below: