- Trump posts a racist video about the Obamas;
- Reactions from John Pavlovitz, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman.
Trump has hit a new low. His fans don’t mind, which says a lot. About him, and about them.
(Of course I’m not doing to display that racist video.)
CNN, today: Trump shares racist video depicting Obamas as apes on Truth Social, then removes it amid bipartisan outrage
President Donald Trump shared a racist video on his social media platform Thursday night that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle, then removed it hours later amid bipartisan outrage, including from close allies.
Reactions:
John Pavlovitz, today: Trump’s Meme About the Obamas is Vile and Racist, and No, It Won’t Lose Him a Single Supporter
I just want to remind you (and myself) that we’ve been here before:
This is gonna end him.
This will be the tipping point.
This is the red line.
He’s finally gone too far.How many times over the last ten years have you said this or thought this?
With a list.
\
Robert Reich, today: Is it unkind to describe our president as a racist pig?
No. Reich has three observations:
First, even Republican senators and representatives are now unafraid to publicly accuse Trump of being a bigot. That’s progress.
Secondly, when congressional Republicans make a ruckus, Trump backs down.
Third, this incident adds to the accumulating evidence that Trump is losing his mind.
\
And of course, spokesperson/shill Karoline Leavitt tries to defend it. That’s her job.
JMG: Leavitt Defends Trump Depicting Obamas As Apes
\\
Fortunately, all this attention to the deplorables of American culture, including the president, is not representative. We’re better than that; or, most of us are better than they are.
Paul Krugman, today: American Decency Still Lives, subtitled “When pushed far enough, Americans will do the right thing”
(I would say it’s not just about Americans; humans have developed a sense of morality, to do the right thing, that has enabled us to grow and prosper. And bring down the occasional aberrations. Eventually.)
Krugman begins with understanding reality.
If you want to accomplish anything in politics, you have to have realistic expectations about voters. Ordinary people aren’t deeply informed about policy or politics. They have jobs to do, children to raise, lives to live. A large proportion of voters don’t have strong ideological preferences — not because they’re “moderates,” but because they don’t think ideologically at all. Instead, they think pragmatically – they think about things like the price of eggs and the cost of health insurance. And because the average voter isn’t a policy or data wonk, they are often misled – for example, by claims that crime is rising even when it’s actually falling.
Granted, some voting behavior is motivated by ugly biases. Racism and sexism, homophobia and transphobia, are still important factors in politics. But there’s a difference between political realism and nihilistic cynicism.
And then he characterizes each side’s strategy.
MAGA’s ethnic cleansing plans — because that’s what they are — were clearly based on the cynical assumption that native-born white Americans wouldn’t rise to the defense of civil liberties and rule of law if state violence was directed at people who don’t look like them.
While Democrats took
a cynical and nihilistic view of American voters: that they couldn’t be trusted to vote against a party that reveled in inflicting cruelty and injustice as long as the price of gasoline fell.
Further, the resistance against ICE is substantial — 65% of Americans it’s gone too far.
Most Americans are decent people. They intensely dislike seeing brutal repression in their communities, even if most of the targets of this brutality have brown skins.
And Democrats should, even as a matter of cynical politics — although I hope it’s more than that — honor this decency by standing against the Trump administration’s brutal lawlessness. Of course they should continue to talk about the economy. But Trump’s immigration policies should no longer be viewed as a distraction from kitchen table issues. They have themselves become a major driver of opposition to his regime.
And so on.
