“In fact, I’d venture that few American historical periods are more relevant to understanding our contemporary racial politics than Reconstruction.” Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
So now, hot on the heels of his Twitter tirade against Ilhan Omar, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, Trump is trash-talking Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. Although I realize it’s not a laughing matter, I can’t help but laugh every time Trump accuses a person-of-color of being a racist. It’s as absurd as when Trump claims not to have a racist bone in his white, flabby body.
It’s obvious that Trump can’t stand it when a man, or worse, woman of color stands up and calls him out for his personal stupidity or the stupidity of his policies. Trump must honestly believe that non-whites have a duty to bow before him; he’s a sick man, not to mention a small, insecure and frightened one.
Next to his cruelty, what astonishes me most about Trump is his bottomless ignorance. He has to rank high among the dolts who have occupied the White House. One has to be pretty fucking stupid to make George W. Bush or Warren G. Harding appear intelligent by comparison. That Trump sits atop the American government is testimony to how broken and degraded our democracy is. The damage done by Trump and his gang of lowbrow misfits and nitwits may be irreparable. He’s loading the Federal courts with far-right ideologues with lifetime tenure. Citizens will pay for this for a generation.
This is the wrong historical moment for an idiot king who leads an amoral political party with no shame. How can so many people who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution keep turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to Trump’s outrageous statements, policies, and behavior? How deep into the cesspool must we descend before these people locate their moral consciousness? How many more lies must Trump spew -- about the economy, the border situation, the environment -- before his acolytes and silent co-conspirators realize how thoroughly they’ve been played?
Perhaps Trump isn’t a surprise, not in the grand scheme of history. Our country was born in a crucible of racism and white supremacy, sanctioned by the Holy Bible, and the stain of racism remains constant. While we’ve made progress -- hard, slow, painful progress -- Trump’s racism isn’t uncommon. Many Americans still believe that African-Americans are genetically inferior, that African-American males are a danger to white females, that Mexicans and Salvadorans are dirty and violent, and that all Muslims hate America. Facts, logic, and reality don’t intrude on these beliefs. The fears of people who hold such beliefs are easily stoked and fanned; Trump does this all the time. It may be the only thing he’s actually good at.
What’s very clear as Trump deals cards from his racist deck is that he is the president -- or Idiot King -- of only some of the American people. The rest of us do not buy the division and hatred this con man is peddling.
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