Trump Goes Full Racist in Attack on Kamala Harris

At least, a few Republicans know better. No sooner had President Biden stepped aside and endorsed Kamala Harris than Speaker Mike Johnson summoned the Republican Caucus to an urgent session. It was important, Johnson urged his members, to avoid commenting on Harris’ race when criticizing her. No more “DEI identity” charges. “This election will be about policies and not personalities,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting.

Apparently, Johnson forgot to send the memo to Donald Trump. In the past two weeks, Trump’s done nothing but engage in misogynistic, racist attacks against Harris – which is just what you’d expect from a life-long racist.

Donald Trump is unarguably such an outright racist it’s surprising he doesn’t strut around in a white robe and pointed hood. His record of racist acts and rhetoric makes George Wallace look reasonable. In 1973, when he was only 27, Trump and his father were sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to African-American families.

In 1989, Trump paid $85,000 for a full-page ad in the New York Times demanding the death penalty for the “Central Park Five” – five young Black teenagers falsely accused of raping a white woman in Central Park. When they were exonerated, Trump refused to apologize.

The list goes on. Real estate developer Trump began his political career by leading the “Birther Movement,” challenging the citizenship of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president. He began his own campaign for president in June 2015 by branding immigrants from Latin America as “rapists” who are “bringing drugs” and “bringing crime” into the country. As a candidate, he proposed banning all Muslims from American soil. In 2016, he demanded that Judge Gonzales Curiel be dismissed from the Trump University Case merely because he was of Mexican descent.

In the White House, Trump routinely attacked female African-American reporters April Ryan, Abby Phillip and Yamiche Alcindor, calling them “nasty,” labeling them “losers,” and accusing them of asking racist questions. He refused to condemn white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville, because he is one. He condemned crowds protesting the murder of George Floyd as “thugs” and promised to send in the “unlimited power of the military” and “vicious dogs” against them.

And in 2020, let’s not forget, in a rerun of his “Birther” days, Trump said Kamala Harris was not qualified to run for vice president with Joe Biden because she was not born in the United States. She was, in fact, born in Oakland, California.

All of which set the stage for Trump’s disastrous appearance this week in front of the National Association of Black Journalists – where Trump not only repeated his absurd claim that he did more for African Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln (really?), but where he challenged Kamala Harris’ Blackness. She’s not really Black, he insisted. One day, she just decided to turn Black for political advantage.

“I’ve known (Harris) a long time indirectly, not directly, very much,” he told the jeering crowd. “And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian, or is she Black?”

How disgusting, and how utterly unworthy of any candidate running for president of the United States. Four hundred and five years after Jamestown, the Republican candidate for president is as big a racist as the men who brought the first African slaves to America.

For the record (not that Trump cares), Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and Black father from Jamaica, has always identified as Black. She attended Howard University. She joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, a sorority for Black women. She was president of the Black Law Students Association at Hastings College of Law.

One thing for certain. Joe Biden could not have done anything better to expose Donald Trump as the obnoxious, hate-filled monster he is than to set him up to run against a Black woman. Because Donald Trump can’t handle strong women. As his despicable lifetime record shows, Trump only sees women as objects to use, abuse, rape, sexually assault, cheat on, and vilify. It was “Crooked Hillary Clinton,” “Crazy Nancy Pelosi,” and “Birdbrain Nikki Haley.” Now it’s “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.”

Yes, Trump’s reduced to making fun of Harris’ laugh. Pathetic! But as long as Trump continues in this vein, Kamala Harris will have the last laugh on Nov. 5.

========

(Bill Press is host of The BillPressPod, and author of 10 books, including: “From the Left: My Life in the Crossfire.” His email address is: bill@billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter @billpresspod.)