Nfl National Anthem Protests
In August 2016 Colin Kaepernick, an NFLquarterback, began sitting during the playing of the U.S. national anthem before games as a protest of police brutality and racial inequality suffered by Black Americans. Then-candidate Trump entered into the debate within days, stating of Kaepernick, “I think it’s personally not a good thing, I think it’s a terrible thing. And, you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try, it won’t happen.”
In June 2018 Trump dis-invited the Super Bowl ChampionPhiladelphia Eagles from their White House visit after finding that only a minority of the players were planning on attending due to their general disagreement with Trump’s policies. Trump claimed that the players’ motivation for not coming was his insistence on standing during the anthem, a claim that was refuted by several Eagles players, as in fact none of the players on that team had knelt during that season. Commentators noted that Trump’s redirection of the issue towards the anthem controversy was an attempt to play on social and racial issues in order to fire up his base and have connected it to his public criticisms of Black NBA players, Black UCLA basketball players, and a Black anchor on ESPN.
Family Separations Under Discussion
Trump administration begins internally discussing family separations policy to deter asylum seekers in February 2017.
Then-DHS Director John Kelly said that DHS was considering family separations on March 7, 2017, saying:
We have tremendous experience of dealing with unaccompanied minors. We turn them over to and they do a very, very good job of putting them in foster care or linking them up with parents or family members in the United States.
On March 30, 2017, then-DHS Director John Kelly says that DHS will not separate families at the border.
On April 5, 2017, the Trump administration said that family separations were no longer under consideration, according to DHS spokesperson David Laplan.
In June 2017, the Trump administration shuttered a program to keep families with children out of immigration detention.
On Nov. 25, 2017, the Houston Chronicle identified 22 cases of family separations at the southern border since June.
In December 2017, the Trump administration was reportedly weighing adopting the family separations policy amid a surge of Central American families at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump Is A Racist If You Still Support Him So Are You
The president keeps baring his ass, and the people talking about his clothing as he does so are part of the problem.
The president is a racist, in his words and his actions.
Before you go clutching your pearls and extolling the virtues of civility, let me say this: Put a sock in it.
This is not a new revelation, nor is it something that we can continue to ignore as though it were coming from a drunk uncle at the family barbecue. Bigotry is dangerous and, coming from our nations commander in chief, it can mean an inability to recognize individual humanity and a failure to act with moral authority in times of crisis. Every person talking about his clothes as he cheerfully bares his ass is part of the problem.
On Sunday, he claimed that newly elected progressive Democrats originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe and the worst, more corrupt and inept anywhere in the world. And he told freshmen Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omaroutspoken Democratic women of color who have challenged the administrations inhumane immigration policiesto leavethe country.
Three of the four were born here in the United States. All are American citizens, and duly elected members of Congress.
This morning, he turned his ire on some of his most vocal critics in Congressall of whom have previously called for his impeachment.
These places need your help badly, he went on, you cant leave fast enough.
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He Encouraged The Mob Anger That Resulted In The Wrongful Imprisonment Of The Central Park Five
In 1989, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York City-area newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty in New York and the expansion of police authority in response to the infamous case of a woman who was beaten and raped while jogging in Manhattans Central Park.
They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes, Trump wrote, referring to the Central Park attackers and other violent criminals. I want to hate these murderers and I always will.
The public outrage over the Central Park jogger rape, at a time when the city was struggling with high crime, led to the wrongful conviction of five teenagers of color known as the Central Park Five.
The mens convictions were overturned in 2002, after theyd already spent years in prison, when DNA evidence showed they did not commit the crime. Today, their case is considered a cautionary tale about a politicized criminal justice process.
Trump, however, still thinks the men are guilty.
Remarks About The Mashantucket Pequots
During a 1993 Congressional hearing on Native American casino operators, Trump said, Go up to Connecticut and you look at the Mashantucket Pequots. They don’t look like Indians to me .
In a Hartford-Courant account of the hearing published here the following day, reporter David Lightman wrote, Trump’s assertion in the Halls of Congress Tuesday — which he broadened to include all Indians who run casinos — was just one more grenade in an hourlong assault on Connecticut, Indians and their casinos that one committee chairman said was the most irresponsible testimony he had heard in nearly two decades in Congress.
According to Lightman, Much of Trumps testimony was unbelievable to the committee and other witnesses, including the president of one of the casinos who called Trumps remarks racist.
In 2016, the Hartford-Courant reported the Trump campaign had not responded to requests for comment on the case .
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The President Once Again Called Coronavirus The China Plague
During the debate, the president once again referred to the coronavirus pandemic as the China plague, while defending his administrations response to tackling the virus.
He said: We built the greatest economy in history, we closed it down because of the China plague.
According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, in the US as a whole, some 7.1 million people have tested positive for coronavirus, while the death toll has reached at least 206,351.
Mr Trump, alongside other Republicans, has repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as the China virus, or Wuhan flu, and other slurs during the pandemic, which have been criticised for blaming the virus on a single country and group of people.
Additionally, there are concerns that the phrase could lead to a rise of harassment and mistreatment of Asian Americans, according to NBC News.
Speaking at a virtual invitation-only fundraiser for Joe Bidens presidential campaign last month, the former US president Barack Obama criticised Mr Trumps use of the phrase, according to The Hill.
I dont want a country in which the president of the United States is actively trying to promote anti-Asian sentiment and thinks its funny, Mr Obama reportedly said.
I dont want that. That still shocks and p***es me off, he added.
Central Park Jogger Case
On the night of April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili was assaulted, raped, and sodomized in Manhattan’s Central Park. On the night of the attack, five juvenile malesâfour African Americans and one of Hispanic descentâwere apprehended in connection with a number of attacks in Central Park committed by around 30 teenage perpetrators. The prosecution ignored evidence suggesting there was a single perpetrator whose DNA did not match any of the suspects, instead using confessions that the suspects said were coerced and false. They were convicted in 1990 by juries in two separate trials, receiving sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. The attacks were highly publicized in the media.
On May 1, 1989, Trump called for the return of the death penalty by taking out a full-page advertisement in all four of the city’s major newspapers. He said he wanted the “criminals of every age” who were accused of beating and raping a jogger in Central Park “to be afraid.” Trump told Larry King on CNN: “The problem with our society is the victim has absolutely no rights and the criminal has unbelievable rights” and, speaking of another case where a woman was raped and thrown out a window, “maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.”
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Ignorance And Racism Alone Cant Account For 71 Million Votes
The period after Trumps election was characterised by soul searching. The media fixated on the figure of the coal miner as a symbol of a desperate voter whose way of life and livelihood were dying.For example, this piece in The Washington Post This figure had been tricked by Trump to vote for a charlatan who promised a return to the old way of doing things.
This calamity thesis is a common one when democratic outcomes do not align with expectations of what American values are. If US Americans vote for someone who is open in their prejudice and disdain for norms, the explanation can only be that some sort of affliction, some calamity has befallen the voting public. This crisis is usually an economic one, hence the left behind exculpatory voter category.
And for those who do not buy the view that anyone could vote for Donald Trump and not share his politics, the other explanation that is often given is similarly simple: racism. Trumps victory is a function of the vast unacknowledged racism that exists within US society, and which was given sanction by his race dog whistles.
Both these categories indeed account for some of Trumps base, the stable pulse of support he has had through the past four years regardless of his performance. But the sheer numbers mean that neither of these explanations give the full picture.
Ignorance and immorality simply cannot account for 71 million votes.
Affirmative Action In Schools
In July 2018, the Trump administration eliminated Obama-era guidelines suggesting that universities consider race for student admissions decisions. The Obama administration had wanted to cultivate a more diverse student body on university campuses, but the Trump administration viewed the guidelines as unconstitutional.
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A Week Later Gop Lets Trumps Racist Death Wish Message Slide
The fact that Donald Trump went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a week ago was not, in and of itself, remarkable. The former president condemns the Kentucky Republican so frequently he told The New York Times Maggie Haberman on the record that McConnell is a piece of s— that the rhetorical offenses barely raise eyebrows anymore.
Part of what made Trumps attack last week stand out, however, was just how far he was willing to go. As we discussed, the former president whined a bit on his Twitter-like platform about congressional spending packages and the Green New Deal, before concluding that McConnell has a DEATH WISH.
For good measure, the same Trump message added, Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!
This was, of course, a reference to Elaine Chao who served as Trumps transportation secretary for four years.
In other words, the former president not only raised the specter of political violence against his own partys Senate leader, he also published a racist message against the senators wife, who happens to have served in Trumps Cabinet.
The question was not what this told Americans about Trumps character. Weve known that answer for quite some time. Instead, the question was how his party might respond to such garbage.
That statement came from Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who, among other things, chairs the bipartisan select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
No Detail Is Too Small For James’ Microscope
The battle over Trump’s personal business documents believed at least in past years to have been stored in file cabinets in Trump Tower in Manhattan provides a window into just how granular James gets in pursuit of evidence.
In asking for the $10,000-a-day fine, it wasn’t enough to accuse Trump of hiding his personal business documents. She also accused his lawyers of hiding the fact that Trump’s hiding his personal business documents.
Trump did so, James is alleging, by omitting a key word, “control,” showing that even a word that does not exist won’t get past James and her staff.
James has been asking Trump, via subpoena, for all documents “in his possession, custody or control.” Trump’s side has replied that the former president “has no documents or communications in his possession or custody that are responsive.”
That response “omits any reference to documents in the control of Mr. Trump,” the AG complained in a memo filed April 7.
“There is a big difference between ‘possession and custody’ and control,” said criminal defense lawyer Adam Kaufmann, a former Chief of Investigations in the Manhattan DA’s office, noting that Trump could have simply transferred actual possession of his documents to someone else.
“Leaving out documents under Mr. Trump’s ‘control’ which appears to be intentional is a glaring omission,” said Kaufmann, of Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, adding, “The lawyers at the AGs office are paying attention to details.”
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Deport Deny And Discourage
Days after the 2016 election, David Duke, a longtime leader of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted that Trumps win was great for our people. Richard Spencer, another prominent white nationalist figure, was captured on video leading a Hail Trump salute at an alt-right conference in Washington.
People with far-right views or white nationalist sympathies gravitated to the administration.
Michael Anton, who published a 2016 essay comparing the countrys course under Obama to that of an aircraft controlled by Islamist terrorists and called for an end to the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners, became deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.
Ian Smith served as an immigration policy analyst at the Department of Homeland Security until email records showed connections with Spencer and other white supremacists. Darren Beattie worked as a White House speechwriter before leaving abruptly when CNN reported his involvement in a conference frequented by white nationalists.
Stephen K. Bannon, who for years used Breitbart News to advance an alt-right, anti-immigrant agenda, was named White House chief strategist, only to be banished eight months later after clashing with other administration officials.
Stephen Miller, by contrast, has survived a series of White House purges and used his position as senior adviser to the president to push hard-line policies that aim to deport, deny and discourage non-European immigrants.
Rational Trump Voter : Market Winners
Record stock prices and a bullish market in general didnt just benefit corporates who were synthesising their own share values. They also benefited high-earning investors. And a whopping 88% of those who have an income of $100,000 and above have some kind of investment in the markets. That rate for those who make under $35,000 is only around 20%, and those investments tend to be illiquid ones tied up in retirement plans.
In short, high earners had the ability of liquidating and consolidating their gains across market investments, tax cuts and windfalls all at once. These are material gains for a cross section of society that will vote to preserve and increase wealth.
Despite Trumps 2016 win being attributed to a working-class revolt, Hillary Clinton actually received more votes in the lowest income categories Trump received 2% more votes than Clinton among higher earners. Their instincts were correct. That vote paid off very well.
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Not Every Trump Voter Is Racist Or Misled Theres A Rational Trump Voter Too
From the series In Trump County by Richard Beaven. The subjects in these photos voted for Trump in the 2016 elections.
So the landslide never came.
Donald Trump not only didnt lose votes, he gained votes. It seemed even more unfathomable than in 2016, where Trumps record only included his stunts on the campaign trail. Here was an increase in the Trump vote after four years where he fomented racial discord, behaved in unstable and destabilising ways, and mismanaged a pandemic that has already claimed almost a quarter of a million lives in the US.
But Trumps unexpected 2020 performance should never have been unexpected, whatever the polls said. It was only so because the motivations of Trump voters are still stuck in a binary, seen as either racist or misled.
There are broadly two strands of conventional wisdom regarding the United States: first, that it is a functioning democracy, and second, that in such a functioning democracy, one must either be ignorant or immoral to vote for someone as openly divisive and incompetent as Donald Trump.
Neither is true.
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Nazi Symbol In Facebook Ads
In June 2020, Facebook removed Trump campaign ads that included an upside down red triangle, a symbol which the Nazis had used to label opponents of their regime. The Trump campaign claimed that the symbol was widely used by Antifa, but experts stated that this is inaccurate and that Antifa use of the symbol is very obscure. Some critics viewed the Trump campaign’s use of the symbol as a racist dog whistle. Facebook stated that “We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate.”
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