Racism

Trump Says Hollywood is Racist Because of Alleged Bias Against – Conservatives?

Posted by on August 9, 2019 at 1:08 pm. 4 Comments :

The rise of white supremacy and openly bigoted white nationalist groups has been going on for many years and has intensified since the election of Donald Trump. It’s so obvious that even Trump’s own FBI Director, Christopher Wray, gave congressional testimony warning that homegrown violent terrorism is the single biggest threat to the country. “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated,” Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

Donald Trump, MAGA

Tragic confirmation of that was evident in the massacre of innocent people, mainly Latino, in El Paso, Texas, last weekend by an avowed anti-immigrant Trump supporter. But the determination by Trump and the Republican Party to address this problem cannot be taken seriously. Neither Trump, nor his political confederates, have made any substantive effort to mitigate the violence and hatred that flows freely in right-wing circles. On Fox News, host Tucker Carlson actually devoted a segment to his theory that white supremacy is a hoax.

It’s hard to imagine that any solutions will be forthcoming from the Trump camp considering that he has been the chief spokesperson for the white nationalist movement and that most of their leaders – and followers – have endorsed him. They are his base and he has demonstrated his loyalty as well as his fear of offending them.

What’s more, Trump can hardly take a position against racism when he doesn’t even seem to understand what it is. In a response to a reporter’s question on Friday morning about political bias on Twitter, Trump awkwardly twisted his response into an attack on Hollywood. He began with a threat that “We’re gonna be very tough with them.” And it just got worse from there (video below).

“They’re treating conservatives very unfairly. Hollywood … is really terrible. You talk about racist … Hollywood is racist. What they’re doing with the kind of movies they’re putting out is actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country. We have now, in a little while, all of the heads of the biggest companies coming in and we’re gonna talk to them. They treat conservatives, Republicans totally different than they treat others. And they can’t do that.”

This is representative of the paranoia that Trump and his GOP crybabies commonly exhibit. Everyone is always out to get them: Hollywood, Twitter, Facebook, the press, etc. Any form of media that exercises their First Amendment rights is regarded as dangerous. And their solution is bullying and intimidation. Where Trump gets the idea that he can dictate what Hollywood can and can’t do is pretty obvious. He gets it from his heroes Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, whose unrestricted totalitarian control of their respective countries is something that Trump envies.

What makes Trump’s whining especially disturbing is that he’s flatly asserting that Hollywood is racist because they are allegedly biased against conservatives. What does that even mean? How would a bias against conservatives be racist? Is he suggesting that such a bias is a racial attack because conservatives are predominantly white and, therefore, any discrimination against them is due to anti-whitism?

Notice that Trump never bothered to provide any examples of the alleged racism he’s accusing Hollywood of engaging in. Perhaps he’s just upset that whenever there’s a racist character in a movie he is portrayed as a villain. Trump would probably like to see some balance where there are some racist heroes on the big screen. That would be consistent with his support for Confederate generals and the statues honoring them.

See? Trump is just a civil rights advocate who seeks equality for people who hate black and brown Americans. And he’s going to take measures to achieve that end. If it means forcing Hollywood to produce only certain types of movies, so be it. After all, If Vlad and Kim can do it, why not Trump?

[UPDATE:] Trump posted a couple of tweets on this subject:

The movie Trump is referring to (but refused to name) is “The Hunt,” a satire that Trump, and the knee-jerk conservative pundits and politicians railing against it, clearly doesn’t understand. The plot features a group of wealthy, entitled liberals who hunt right-wing hicks for sport. But it’s not glorifying the liberals. Rather, they are portrayed as evil nutcases and their right-wing “prey” as the victims. The movie’s hero is one of the hunted who fights back.

But Trump’s tweets are pitifully stupid for another reason. He resists the label of “elites” being assigned to the movie’s rich villains. That’s because he considers himself elite and wants to retain that “privilege” for himself and his ilk. He seems to be more aligned to the wealthy villains in this movie than the poor conservatives he panders to. Also, there is absolutely no racial component to any of this.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump Won’t Condemn White Nationalist Domestic Terrorists for Fear of Offending His Base

Posted by on August 4, 2019 at 12:02 pm. 6 Comments :

The casualties are piling up as gun violence in America continues unabated. And it is impossible to tolerate any longer the right-wing mantra of “thoughts and prayers” while they do absolutely nothing constructive to solve the problem. To the contrary, Republicans in Congress work affirmatively to obstruct common sense solutions that the American people want in unprecedented majorities.

Donald Trump

This isn’t about mental health. It’s not about video games or prayer in school. It’s about easy access to weapons of war and the flagrant racism and hate speech of Donald Trump and his ilk. There have been more mass shootings (250) in 2019 than there have days (219). And while Democrats have passed bills in the House of Representatives, Republicans, and particularly GOP leader Mitch McConnell, have refused to even allow a vote on any of those bills.

For his part, Donald Trump remains aloof and unable to tear himself away from his golf game, or Fox News, long enough to address this crisis with any measure of the seriousness it demands. A real president would deliver an Oval Office speech condemning the white nationalists who are responsible for the majority of fatalities related terrorism in the U.S. That’s a conclusion that even the Trump-appointed FBI director affirmed. It would be nice if we had a real president.

But Trump himself will not even acknowledge that there is a problem with right-wing violence. In fact, he literally downplays any significant occurrence of it. Following the slaughter at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, Trump dismissed the growing threat of white nationalism saying that “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”

The words “white nationalist terrorism” have never passed through Trump’s lips. And this is despite his being one of the most vocal critics of President Obama for not using the inaccurate and inflammatory phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump even called for Obama to resign on Twitter asking…

Trump has made it a hallmark of his presidency to maliciously portray refugees as criminals and terrorists “invading” our country. Never mind that his exclusionary view of “our” country ignores the fact that it is populated, and was built, by refugees. Yet he demands that they “go back where they came from,” even they happen to be U.S. citizens and elected representatives in Congress. The rhetoric of “invasion,” and “criminal,” and “go back,” is exactly the same language that appears in the manifestos of these racist murderers.

It’s also the same language that is used by Fox News. Tucker Carlson’s White Nationalist Hour frequently bemoans the “darkening” of America. He has said that immigration “makes our own country poorer, and dirtier.” His colleague Laura Ingraham worries that “the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore [due to] massive demographic changes … that most of us don’t like.” And in the wake of two tragic massacres, Fox sought to blame ISIS or video games rather than the clearly guilty movement of alt-right bigotry.

There’s a reason that Trump won’t go after these domestic terrorists. He is scared. He’s a shivering wisp of a man who is afraid of offending his base. He’s afraid that the attendance at his cult rallies will decline. He’s terrified of losing support from the neo-Nazis who comprise the most activist faction of his hateful crusade. And Republicans in Congress won’t act either because they are afraid of offending Trump.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Trump is so unashamedly beholden to his cretinous disciples that he recently joked about shooting migrants. And considering the clarity that Trump gives to his hate speech, no one should be surprised when his followers take up the call. When they do, don’t expect Trump to denounce them. But the rest of the nation needs to come together and condemn Trump’s hatred and incitement to violence. We need to hold him accountable for the pain and grief he purposefully encourages. And if he can’t “finally mention the words [white nationalist terrorism], he should immediately resign in disgrace!”

Trump’s Base: FBI Cites Right-Wing Conspiracy Groups Like QAnon as Domestic Terrorists

Posted by on August 1, 2019 at 2:00 pm. 0 Comments :

The incidence of racial hatred and violence has done nothing but increase during the administration of Donald Trump. In fact, the relationship between hate crimes and Trump is so tightly correlated that one study shows an increase in violence of 226 percent just in the counties where Trump has held a recent rally. And his ramping up of racist remarks aimed at congressional women of color surely isn’t helping.

Trump Charlotsville

Not surprisingly, the response to this flagrant bigotry from Trump’s Deplorables has been an outpouring of support. Polls show that Republican approval for Trump actually went up after his racist tirades. But within his own FBI, a new report is placing the blame for violence instigated by hate groups where it truly belongs:

“The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat […] It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.”

Other non-partisan organizations have found similar evidence of this sort of violent activity, but this is the first time that it has been affirmed by the FBI with specific citations of the bad actors:

“The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).”

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.”

The report forecasts that “conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.” And FBI Director Christopher Wray (a Trump appointee) warned that “a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

What the report leaves out is the link between these violent groups and Donald Trump. QAnon is built around a clandestine cabal of cultists who believe that Trump is heading up a secret society whose mission is to expose a child sex trafficking ring masterminded by Hillary Clinton. No really! And Trump has also been closely affiliated with conspiracy crackpots like Glenn Beck and Alex Jones of Infowars. However, the ability of law enforcement to reign in these organizations was greatly curtailed when, according to the Department of Homeland Security, “nearly all, if not all, the intelligence analysts focusing on domestic extremist groups” were eliminated under the Trump administration.

The publication of this report at this particular time has its own set of peculiarities. Most notable is the fact that Trump himself addressed the matter of domestic terrorism just last week, but from the completely opposite direction:

Bear in mind that there is no such thing as Antifa. There is no organization by that name, nor are there any acknowledged members. There are, however, people who are intensely anti-fascist, and they sometimes express that opposition with physical force aimed at the organizers and attendees of neo-Nazi rallies.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

You have to wonder why Trump chose to speak out for the first time on this subject five days before the release of an FBI report on violence by white nationalists. Did he get a heads up from the FBI? Was he attempting to sandbag the FBI’s study with his own phony narrative? Whatever the reason, the effect of Trump’s tweet was to excuse the documented brutality on the part of the people who make up his base of support. And you can be sure that Trump will never make a similar denouncement of the “gutless Radical [Right] Wack Jobs” who populate his rallies and on whose votes he relies.

Sleazy Don: Trump Retweets Meme that Says ‘Democrats Are the True Enemies of America’

Posted by on July 30, 2019 at 12:44 pm. 8 Comments :

It’s been said that when you find yourself in hole, stop digging. That, of course, isn’t Donald Trump’s philosophy. He’s been known to triple-down on the most repulsive and offensive outbursts without regard for decency or respect for the office of the President. And now he’s backing up the bull(shit)dozer to expand his excavation efforts in the wake of his ever worsening racist tirades.

Donald Trump, Democrats

Trump spent Tuesday morning reiterating his baseless insults and charges of malfeasance aimed mainly at African-American critics in Congress. He outrightly, and without evidence, accused Rep. Elijah Cummings of stealing federal funds sent to Baltimore. [Note: As a congressman, Cummings has no access to funds sent to city or state jurisdictions]. And while there is an obvious racial component to Trump’s noxious blather, he was also triggered by the fact that Cummings is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is investigating an assortment of crimes committed by Trump and his family of Swamp-dwellers.

Trump has also been spewing lies like a busted fire hydrant. He whined that “the Washington Post is a Russian asset.” He’s been doing a lot of that lately. Then he said that he is “the least racist person there is anywhere in the world.” If that isn’t a psychopathic danger signal, nothing is.

Trump also completely made up another of his fairy tales of Trumpian heroics recalling an invented memory about 9/11, saying that “I was down there also, but I’m not considering myself a first responder. But I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.” By “down there” he must mean Mar-a-Lago. That was followed by this gem of deranged fantasy: “The African American people have been calling the White House. They have never been so happy as what a president has done.” Never? So those eight years of the first African-American president were just a mildly pleasant diversion?

But worst of all, Trump allowed his true feelings to show about the Democratic Party, which just happens to be the majority political party in the United States. Trump retweeted a meme that had a single message of blatant fascist authoritarianism: “Democrats Are the True Enemies of America.” [Update: The account of the QAnon supporting, conspiracy crackpot who tweeted the meme has since been suspended by Twitter].

Up until now, this is a diatribe that Trump reserved for the free press, a cherished part of the Constitution’s First Amendment. But now he is applying it to the millions of Americans who align themselves with working people, respect for diversity, access to healthcare and education, tax fairness, the environment, and the sort of diplomacy that promotes peace and prosperity around the world.

Trump has finally admitted that he thinks Democrats are not just a political party that opposes his Republican Nationalist Party, but he believes that they are literally enemies of United States. That view by itself represents a dangerous threat to the very concept of democracy.

To be clear, Trump is calling the Democratic majority of the House of Representative enemies of America. He’s calling Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer enemies of America. He’s calling the governors and mayors of the nation’s most populous and prosperous states and cities enemies of America. And he’s calling every citizen who identifies as a Democrat, an enemy of America. That’s a whole lot of enemies that Trump is declaring from his perch in the White House. It is, in fact, the majority of the country.

It’s notable that Trump retweeted this nauseating meme a few hours after tweeting about an infrastructure bill that he hoped would be passed in Congress. He praised the “[strong interest] from Republicans and Democrats. Do I hear the beautiful word, BIPARTISAN? Get it done. I am with you!” Really? He’s with the people that he thinks are the enemies of America?

A better question is should any Democrat – or even patriotic Republican – be with Trump? And the answer to that is “Hell No!” And that also goes for any Republican who is too frightened or compromised to denounce what Trump is saying now about the citizens and politicians and journalists that don’t kneel down obediently to Trump’s imaginary divine authority.

There have been way too many times that it’s been said that Trump has “crossed a line” It’s been said about his racism, his collusion with Russia, his obstruction of justice, his financial corruption, his moral depravity, etc. But this time it should be plain to everyone who loves this country that he is utterly unfit to serve as president, or any other position of public trust.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Under Fire for Racism and Facing Impeachment, Trump is Sucking Harder on His Fox News Pacifier

Posted by on July 28, 2019 at 1:29 pm. 0 Comments :

Let’s get this out of the way from the start: Donald Trump is a straight up racist who is fomenting hatred in America by stoking the bigotry of his white nationalists supporters. That is evident in his ever increasing rhetoric that attacks almost exclusively people of color in Congress and in American cities. But Trump isn’t parading down that heinous path alone.

Donald Trump, Phone, Pacifier

As the well deserved tsunami of criticism crests over Trump’s Crusade of Deplorables, he’s finding refuge in a familiar fox hole. Literally. Trump is leaning more heavily on Fox News for validation than ever. Which is astonishing since for years he has been leaning at angle that defies gravity. Trump began sucking on his Fox News pacifier long before he was a candidate for president. He had a weekly segment on Fox and Friends called “Mondays with Trump.” And after entering the White House he has circled the Fox wagons around him by appointing Fox alum to high posts in his administration. Likewise, former Trump associates quickly scurried over to Fox for work after leaving the White House.

The latest tantrum thrown by our Kindergarten President featured what most objective analysts recognize as flagrant racism. Trump’s attack on Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland was littered with the language of fascists who stir up their stormtroopers by dehumanizing those they despise and portraying them as vermin. But Trump didn’t just wake up and decide to viciously malign the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Although that wouldn’t have been surprising since the committee is currently holding hearings to pull the sheets off of his numerous criminal activities.

Nope. Trump was triggered by a segment on Fox News that was deliberately laying the groundwork for his racist tirade. But Fox’s role in this is not limited to field research for the Grand Wizard of the White House. They play a much larger part in the wingnut fog that surrounds the President. So now when Trump’s moral depravity is being punished by decent Americans, Big Baby Trump is hiding behind the petticoats of Fox News.

This weekend alone Trump has posted videos or other references to Fox News nine times. It’s a parade of the usual suspects. Trump tweeted Jeanine Pirro three times, Mike Levin, twice, along with Louis Gohmert, Jesse Watters, and Pete Hegseth of Fox and Friends. There weren’t any posts by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham because they aren’t on the air on the weekend. But rest assured, they are in Trump’s so-called heart.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This happens every time Trump finds himself in trouble. He can’t articulate a coherent thought, so he relies on the simple-minded blather from his confederates on State TV. Even when he tweets some sort of self-defense, it is usually purloined from the ravings of someone he just saw on Fox. Trump would not be president today were it not for Fox News. And he could not survive another week if they went off the air. Fox News is Trump’s respirator. He is already brain dead, but being kept alive politically by the propaganda machine to which he is attached.

Pro-Trump Fox News Guest Inadvertently Affirms that Trump has Been a Racist All His Life

Posted by on July 19, 2019 at 2:50 pm. 2 Comments :

Ordinarily Donald Trump’s nauseating scandals are quickly pushed out of the ever-shortening news cycle by even worse scandals. It’s a tactic that Trump has studiously employed from the start of his scandal-riddled administration. But the recent ruckus created by his brazenly racist comments about four Democratic congresswomen of color has had real staying power. Mostly because of Trump’s foolishness and flip-flopping.

Donald Trump

The righteous criticism that Trump has received for telling American citizens to “go back” where they came from continues to be a top story. After he tweeted his insults, he presided over one of his cult rallies where the audience chanted “Send he back.” The next day Trump tried to disown those chants by lying about how they started and what his response was. The day after that he tried to disavow his disavowal. Probably because he didn’t want to be seen as disparaging his followers. After all, a recent poll shows that the more racist Trump is, the more Republicans love him.

Throughout this controversy, Trump has been defended by his Republican confederates and the StormTrumping pundits on Fox News. And on Friday he got a testimonial that may not be all that complimentary. Radical Christianist Mike Huckabee (father of former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders) was interviewed by Fox’s Heather Childers when the subject of Trump’s racism was broached. Huckabee’s perverse defense was that…

“If Donald Trump had been a racist all these years, don’t you think it would have come out somewhere in the life that he’s lived which has been about as public as any elected official has ever lived. And the fact is, a person doesn’t just suddenly become a racist at the age of 72, having not been one up until that point.”

That’s exactly right. And what a surprising morsel of insight from such a noxious Trump-fluffing shill. It would be extremely unlikely for a 72 year old like Trump to turn into a flaming bigot overnight. There would have to have been some evidence of it earlier. So what Huckabee is saying is that if Trump was not a racist before, than he isn’t one now. Well, let’s take a look at Trump’s very public life to see for ourselves:

  • He had a strict “no colored people” policy in his apartment buildings.
  • He advocated the death penalty for the Central Park 5, even after they had been found innocent.
  • He told business associates that he didn’t want any black accountants.
  • He was an avid Birther (believing that Obama was not an American).
  • He refused to renounce KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.
  • He said there “fine people on both sides” of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.
  • He imposed a ban on Muslim immigrants.
  • He said that a Latino judge could not be neutral.
  • He called black athletes “sons of bitches.”
  • He labeled Haiti and Africa as “shithole countries.”

That isn’t even a comprehensive list. There are many other examples of Trump’s flagrant bigotry. He has indeed lived a life of personal and professional bias against black and brown people. And the history of that life is confirmation of Huckabee’s assertion Trump did not suddenly become a racist. He has been one for decades. And he follows in the footsteps of his father who attended Klan rallies in New York. This surely was not Huckabee’s point, but it tells the real story of Donald Trump’s long-festering racism.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

GOP Approval for Trump Rises AFTER Racist Tweets – Tells You Something About the GOP

Posted by on July 17, 2019 at 12:04 pm. 5 Comments :

From the very first day Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president, he established his credentials as the Republican Party’s foremost spokesman for white nationalism and the racist hate groups who rallied to his campaign. And trump hasn’t been shy about his gratitude for their support. This week he even told a Fox News reporter that he isn’t concerned that white nationalists are “finding common cause” with his racist remarks.

Donald Trump, MAGA

Following Trump’s brazenly bigoted Twitter rants against Democratic women of color, there has been a deafening silence from his GOP colleagues. They are either too scared to take the ethical road and condemn Trump’s racism, or they agree with it. And now there is a new Reuters poll that really tells us all we need to know about today’s Republican Nationalist Party:

“Support for U.S. President Donald Trump increased slightly among Republicans after he lashed out on Twitter over the weekend in a racially charged attack on four minority Democratic congresswomen, a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll shows. […] his net approval among members of his Republican Party rose by 5 percentage points.”

There you have it. Trump may be an avowed white supremacist, but his public utterances affirming that are clearly a deliberate strategy to appeal the members of his party who are lapping it up. They like him even more when he’s articulating overtly racist messages. That can only serve to incite ever more repugnant hate speech from the President and his Klannish confederates.

For contrast, approval from Democrats and independents both declined in the poll. And a separate poll from USA Today confirmed these findings. It showed that overall large majorities of 59 percent of voters called Trump’s tweets “un-American.” And 68 percent said they were “offensive.” But a majority of 57 percent of Republicans said they agreed with Trump’s racist tweets.

Contrary to the disgust by most Americans for Trump’s racism, he continues to dig himself deeper into the abyss of blatant bigotry. On Wednesday morning he quote-tweeted a Fox News commentary by GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who said that “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” are “Wack Jobs.” And somehow Trump thought that would help his argument that he isn’t a racist scumbucket. He also tweeted a poll of his own to bolster his lagging defense:

First of all, let’s not ignore that Trump is once again maligning four women of color, who were elected to represent their districts, with his obviously sarcastic thanks to “the vicious young Socialist Congresswomen.” It’s part of his reelection strategy to fire up his Deplorable base by dehumanizing his critics.

As for Rasmussen, it is a thoroughly disgraced, right-wing purveyor of deliberately slanted surveys. Nevertheless, Trump posts a similar tweet every time Rasmussen puts Trump at 50 percent. Never mind that the same poll also shows Trump with a negative “approval index” wherein his strong disapproval always exceeds his strong approval. What’s more, whenever Rasmussen hits 50 percent for Trump, it only lasts a few days before he is once again in negative territory. And this is with the most Trump-friendly pollster on the planet.

So Trump is caught in an endless loop where Rasmussen puts him at around 47 percent, then he pops to 50 and Trump squeezes out a tweet. Then he drops to the mid forties again. Then he spikes back to 50 triggering another tweet. This has happened at least fourteen times just this year. You have to wonder if this is a strategy on Rasmussen’s part to give Trump some phony survey data to brag about.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Although, it hardly seems worthy af bragging when Trump can’t even manage to get half the nation to approve of him for more than a day or two in a notoriously pro-Trump poll (most polls have him in the low forties). And it is downright disastrous when Trump’s Republican Party support goes up after he spends several days ranting like the Klan’s Grand Wizard. But that should inform America’s voters that the problem isn’t just Trump. It’s the entire GOP. And in 2020, all of them need to be exorcised from our local and national governments.

On Fox News Kellyanne Conway Calls Democrats a ‘Dark Underbelly’ Who ‘Pal Around with Terrorists’

Posted by on July 16, 2019 at 11:17 am. 2 Comments :

The obvious and nauseating bigotry of Donald Trump has been erupting like a flaming volcano of racism for several days now. The latest Vesuvial blast began with Trump’s heinous demands that a group of four congressional women of color should “go back” to where they came from. Never mind that they are all U.S. citizens, three of whom were born here. He further disparaged these elected representatives and proud Americans as communists who hate the country.

Kellyanne Conway, Fox News

On Tuesday morning Trump responded to the near unanimous condemnation of his hate speech by unleashing one of his typical tweetstorms, doubling down on his abhorrent “love it or leave it” diatribe. He posted seven tweets on this subject alone, exposing how desperately afraid he is and driven to malign anyone who dares to criticize him. He even whined about a proposed bill of censure in congress to denounce his loathsome remarks.

Remember, this is a President who, when asked if he was concerned that white nationalists find common cause with his comments, he replied, “It doesn’t concern me at all because many people agree with me.” He’s right. A lot of white nationalists do agree with him. They are, in fact, his base.

Also on Tuesday morning Trump’s Senior White House Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, managed to make matters even worse. She was “interviewed” on Fox News (video below) where she performed her famous filibuster routine, refusing to allow even the friendly Trump-fluffers of Fox to get a word in. And in this harangue, Conway let loose some more racist dog whistles to earn the affection of Trump and his Deplorables. Referring to the four Democratic women known as “The Squad,” Conway said that…

“They represent a dark underbelly in this country […] We’re tired of some of these women palling around with terrorists.”

The audacity of these people is shocking. Conway had no reservations whatsoever about highlighting the “darkness” of the critics she was so intent on vilifying and dehumanizing. And her reckless accusation of an imaginary terrorist affiliation is the sort of thing generally reserved for fascist propagandists. It is also a retread of Sarah Palin’s slanderous yelping at President Obama. The Fox News hosts didn’t react or follow up on these sick statements at all. Of course, Trump said much the same thing yesterday when he explicitly – and falsely – asserted that Rep. Ilhan Omar expressed pro-Al Qaeda sentiments. But Conway wasn’t finished with her crusade of defamation. She defended Trump’s racist tweet tantrum saying that…

“The President explained what he meant by those. The President explained that if you don’t like it here get out. That, by the way, goes way beyond these four people. That goes to everybody who’s tearing down the American flag and putting up the Mexican flag.”

How does that make anything better? Conway merely expanded the scope of her racism to include even more people. And she did it with a straw man argument that has no basis in reality. None of the Democrats she and Trump have been attacking have ever torn down an American flag or replaced it with any other. She fundamentally misunderstands the principle that dissent is patriotic in a healthy democracy. Trump also doesn’t get it, even though his past is one of unrelenting dissent and disparagement of America. He even called it a “Hell Hole” during his campaign.

Kellyanne might learn something from her husband George Conway, who wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post aptly titled “Trump is a Racist President.” But it is totally implausible that she would grasp the insight her husband is offering. Nevertheless, Conway did hit on a moment of truth during this segment when she complained that “People are analogizing a red hat to a swastika.” However, she utterly missed the fact that this analogy is only being put forth because of how accurate it is.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Made in America? Trump Uses White House Farce to Lie and Embrace White Nationalists

Posted by on July 15, 2019 at 4:05 pm. 2 Comments :

On Monday morning Donald Trump hosted a “Made in America” charade at the White House that was intended to celebrate domestic manufacturers, workers, and products. What makes this especially absurd is that Trump himself has his own merchandise made primarily in China and other foreign countries. What’s more, he also buys most of the materials and furnishings for his properties from abroad and hires many foreign workers to staff his resorts and commercial buildings.

Trump Charlotsville

Setting aside the hypocrisy of Trump hosting this affair, there were other problems that interfered with its intended goals. Specifically, Trump couldn’t resist spewing the sort of hate speech that is the hallmark of his presidency. So, ignoring the gathered businesses, Trump held an impromptu press conference to exalt himself and double down on his purposefully racist tweets from the day before.

It seemed like Trump had hit rock bottom when he told several congresswomen that they should “go back” where they came from. Never mind that they came from the U.S. by birth or naturalization. What we need to remember is that there is no bottom with Trump. And this was demonstrated today when he addressed the media. His comments were typical of the long-winded, rambling verbal diarrhea that he is famous for.

However, he sunk to new depths of hostility and division that were painful to endure. For most of the time he focused on Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-America who represents Minnesota’s 5th congressional district. She was also one of the four congressional women of color that Trump attacked viciously the day before. But today he went even further (video below):

“I’m watching them. All they do is complain. So all I’m saying is if they wanna leave they can leave. They can leave. I mean, I look at the one, I look at Omar. I don’t know, I never met her. I hear the way she talks about Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has killed many Americans. She said you can hold your chest out. ‘When I think of America…huh. When I think of Al Qaeda I can hold my chest out.'”

So after repeating his bigoted remarks from yesterday, Trump explicitly asserted that Omar expressed pro-Al Qaeda and anti-American sentiments. That would be profoundly disturbing if it had actually happened. It absolutely did not. So how did Trump come to utter this repugnant lie about an elected member of Congress? It appears he got it from one of his Twitter followers (The Reagan Battalion) who he has retweeted before. This twit posted a video that he falsely claimed showed Omar being supportive of Al Qaeda. It was, in fact, quite the opposite.

In the video Omar is discussing a professor who would gesture with his shoulders whenever he used words like “Al Qaeda” to emphasize the reference. It was his gestures, not hers. And the gestures were not even supportive. But at no time in the full video did she ever say that she holds her chest out when thinking of Al Qaeda. That was an invention totally attributable to Trump’s deranged imagination. Which was further on display as he later told this lie about Omar to the press :

“When she talked about the World Trade Center being knocked down and ‘some people.’ You remember the famous ‘some people’? These are people that in my opinion hate our country. […] These are people that hate our country. They hate our country. They hate it, I think, with a passion.”

This is another example of Trump deliberately misrepresenting what was said. Here Omar was simply criticising people whose reaction to 9/11 was to cast blame on all Muslims. Her reference to “some people” was to draw a distinction between the terrorists and every other peace-loving Muslim who repudiated their vile actions. Trump went on to lie some more about Omar saying that she “hates Israel” and “hates Jews” and repeated the lie that she spoke about “how great Al Qaeda is.”

In the eleven minutes that Trump spent with the media, he exhibited one the signs of his rapidly progressing dementia. He repeats the same things over and over. During this avail he said of the Democratic congresswomen that “If they don’t like it here they can leave” ten times. He also said that “They hate America” six times. It was festival of rancorous bluster that served no purpose other than spreading hatred. But perhaps the most troubling exchange happened when Trump was asked this question:

John Roberts, Fox News: Does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist, and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point?
Trump: It doesn’t concern me at all because many people agree with me.

So Trump isn’t concerned that white nationalists are embracing him because – well – because there are many white nationalists embracing him. That surely provides him much comfort when he’s trying to decide what racist tropes he’ll disseminate next. At least he knows that he has the support of America’s neo-Nazis and Klan organizations. He must be so proud. And just think…it’s all made in America.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Hate Screech: Trump Tells U.S. Born Democratic Congresswomen to ‘Go Back Where You Came From’

Posted by on July 14, 2019 at 11:31 am. 8 Comments :

On his regularly scheduled Sunday Morning Tweetstorm, Donald Trump affirmed his devout racism by attacking four Democratic representatives who also just happen to be women of color. Trump’s tweets are so abhorrent that even his own administration refused to defend the blatantly bigoted remarks. But Trump’s hatefulness extends even beyond the racism aimed at political foes.

Donald Trump, Klan Leader

In the series of tweets that Trump posted, he managed to include an array of hate messages that are, sadly, typical, of his public comments. He tweeted that:

The representatives Trump is targeting are Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Although he is too afraid to actually mention their names. And it’s inescapable that his comments were directed exclusively to “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen.” So he is not only exposing his festering bigotry, he is also displaying the misogyny that has long been a part of his repugnant character. It is what leads to his abuse of women and his friendships with other abusers (i.e. Jeffrey Epstein, Roger Ailes, and Bill O’Reilly).

What’s more, Trump is maligning the countries that he is telling these women to go back to. He calls them “the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world” and “totally broken and crime infested.” It’s reminiscent of his blanket disparagement of what he called “shithole countries” last year.

The unmistakable signals that Trump is sending to his white nationalist base is disgusting and intolerable. But it’s made all the worse by his ignorance. Three of the four representatives Trump targeted for this harassment were actually born in the U.S. So Trump’s attack is based solely on his stereotyping of them by the color of their skin. It’s notable that he never made any such demands of Republican representatives who really are foreign born (Dan Crenshaw: UK; Mark Meadows: France; David Rouzer: Germany; Ted Cruz: Canada). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are all men from predominantly white, Eurocentric countries.

In addition to these tweets that call for banishing Democratic women of color, Trump also posted a frantic flurry of twenty-one (21!) tributes, by mostly random and anonymous tweeters, to an utterly phony “movement” aimed at persuading African-Americans to “walkaway” from the Democratic Party. It’s part of the broader “Blexit” fraud that Fox News has pushed.

The white-wing of the GOP really thinks that African-Americans are stupid enough to ignore hateful diatribes like the ones Trump just posted, and join the party of oppression and white supremacy. And Trump is so demented that he believes that promoting the racist walkaway scam, in the same barrage of tweets where he insults congressional women of color, is a winning strategy to advance black acceptance of the GOP. This only confirms the many diagnoses of Trump as a sociopathic narcissist who is unfit to serve.

And for those who were curious, Fox and Friends thought it was funny:

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.