Racial views of Donald Trump Wikipedia

George Yancy, a professor at Emory University known for his work on racial issues, concluded that Trump is racist, describing his outlook as “a case of unabashed white supremacist ideas.” Additionally, John Cassidy of The New Yorker concluded, “we have a racist in the Oval Office.” CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta said the Washington Post report combined with statements made in 2016 and 2017 shows “the president seems to harbor racist feelings about people of color from other parts of the world.” Andrew Anglin, the editor of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer stated, “Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign.” Rocky Suhayda, chairman of the American Nazi Party, said that although Trump “isn’t one of us,” his election would be a “real opportunity” for the white nationalist movement.

In March 2017, six members of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Trump to discuss the caucus’s reply to Trump’s campaign-rally question to African Americans, “What do you have to lose?” (by voting for him). Journalist Jonathan Capehart commented, “Does he think that all black people know each other and she’s going to go run off and set up a meeting for him?” Trump replied, “Well, I would. I tell you what. Do you want to set up the meeting?” When Ryan said she was just a reporter, Trump pursued, “Are they friends of yours?” The New York Times wrote that Trump was “apparently oblivious to the racial undertones of posing such a query to a black journalist”.

Trump made comments following a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them as “very fine people”. Trump has nominated or appointed multiple people with a history of making racist comments. He called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last August “very fine people.” He began his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech disparaging Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.”

Claims about Kamala Harris’s background

• Trump repeated the phrase “they’re poisoning the blood of our country” during a December 16, 2023 rally, and has continued repeating the phrase throughout his 2024 presidential campaign.
• Trump regularly demonized dark-skinned immigrants before the 2018 midterm elections, and his campaign produced an ad — about a caravan of migrants traveling through Mexico — that was so racist even Fox News declined to air it.
• Starting with his presidential run in 2016, Trump has often told the story of “The Snake”, inspired by the song written by Oscar Brown Jr.

In 2018, during an Oval Office meeting about immigration reform, Trump referred to El Salvador, Haiti, and African countries as “shitholes”, which critics condemned as a racist comment. From 2011 to 2016, Trump was a leading proponent of the debunked birther conspiracy theory falsely claiming president Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Journalists, friends, family, and former employees have accused him of fueling racism in the United States.

Senate minority whip Dick Durbin, the only Democrat present at the Oval Office meeting, stated that Trump did use racist language and referred to African countries as “shitholes” and that “he said these hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly.” Five days after the rally, Trump returned to Twitter to express sympathy with the original rally and their defense of Confederate statues, writing, “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments” and “the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!” His statement and his subsequent defenses of it, in which he also referred to “very fine people on both sides”, suggested a moral equivalence between the white supremacist marchers and those who protested against them, leading some observers to state that he was sympathetic to white supremacy. In his initial statement on the rally, Trump condemned “hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides” but did not directly denounce white nationalists. Two hours after the dispersal order, a woman was killed and 35 other people injured at a nearby mall, when a self-professed neo-Nazi drove his car into a group of people who had been protesting against the rally.

Reactions by the Congressional Black Caucus

Maggie Brown, daughter of Oscar Brown Jr., stated that Trump’s immigration agenda “deals with separatism, racism, sexism, and it’s kind of thing that’s polar opposite to what Oscar Brown Jr was about.” Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt said “Trump’s snake story is vicious, disgraceful, utterly racist and profoundly un-American.” Austrian language researcher Kateryna Pilyarchuk claims that “Trump has used ‘The Snake’ to whip up racist fervor at raucous rallies.” The comments received widespread domestic and international condemnation; news anchors such as Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon called Trump a racist. Ten days after the rally, in prepared remarks at an American Legion conference, Trump called for the country to unite. Also, when a caucus member told Trump that cuts to welfare programs would hurt her constituents, “not all of whom are black”, the president replied, “Really? Then what are they?”, although most welfare recipients are white.

International response

On June 20, 2020, in a speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump used language widely described as racist, referring to COVID-19 as “Kung Flu”, a phrase that then Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway had previously described as “wrong”, “highly offensive” and “very hurtful”. Limbaugh had made numerous statements widely described as racist in his career as a radio personality. Despite widespread calls for his resignation (including by over 100 members of Congress), Trump continued to support Miller and did not condemn his advocacy of white supremacy. The Trump administration has included several officials with ties to white nationalism.

“White Power” retweet

The authors concluded that “actions were more likely to be environmentally related, whereas rhetoric was more likely to be racist”, further positing that “spectacular racism has helped obscure the relatively smooth and devastating deregulation.” However, the authors also cautioned that the numbers of actions taken “do not indicate impact”, specifically pointing to the Muslim ban and restriction of asylum claims. Doug McAdam writes that Trump “is just giving unusually loud and frank voice to views already typical among large numbers of Republicans” and “has pushed the GOP toward ever further racist and nativist extremes.” McAdam believes that the Republican Party shift away from more liberal views on matters of racial equality began with Richard Nixon’s presidency. Following Trump’s defense of Confederate symbols in 2020, several journalists and pundits accused Trump of being racist and pandering to white voters. Following the incident in which Trump referred to several nations as “shithole countries”, some media commentators moved from describing certain words and actions of Trump as manifesting racism, to calling Trump racist. The Southern Poverty Law Center monitored Trump’s campaign throughout the election and noted several instances where Trump and lower-level surrogates either used white nationalist rhetoric or engaged with figures in the white nationalist movement. They affirmed their racialist beliefs, stating “Race is real, race matters, and race is the foundation of identity.” Speakers called for a “White Homeland” and expounded on racial differences in intelligence.

“I think I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations.” Trump pardoned – and fulsomely praises – Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff sanctioned for racially profiling Latinos and for keeping immigrants in brutal prison conditions. Under Bannon’s leadership, the website Breitbart made white nationalism a central theme. Trump hired Steve Bannon as his campaign head and later White House chief strategist.

In a CBS News and YouGov poll of almost 2,100 American adults conducted from July 17 to 19, it was found that 34% felt that Trump’s initial tweets were not racist, and 48% felt that they were racist. On July 19, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, commented, “I reject Trump’s comments and stand in solidarity with the congresswomen he targeted.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “The comments made were hurtful, wrong and completely unacceptable. I want everyone in Canada to know that those comments are completely unacceptable and should not be allowed or encouraged in Canada”. On July 19, Trump praised the North Carolina crowd as “incredible people” and “incredible patriots”. Trump also named Ilhan Omar and misrepresented comments Omar made in 2013, falsely claiming that Omar had praised al-Qaeda. After the vote, Trump praised the Republican Party for being unified in rejecting the House resolution, while acknowledging that alvexo forex broker the resolution was regarding his comments on “four Democrat Congresswomen”.

Response from Democrats

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. Trump praised NFL owners when they voted to allow protesters to be penalized or dismissed for their actions, taking the occasion to suggest that players who didn’t want to stand for the anthem didn’t belong in the country. In August 2016 Colin Kaepernick, an NFL quarterback, began sitting (later kneeling) during the playing of the U.S. national anthem as a protest of police brutality and racial inequality suffered by Black Americans. He ignored their orders and was convicted of contempt of court for continuing to racially profile Hispanics. The illegal tactics that he was using included “extreme racial profiling and sadistic punishments that involved the torture, humiliation, and degradation of Latino inmates”.

Kamala Harris citizenship conspiracy theories

Analysis of pre- and post-election surveys from the American National Election Studies, as well as numerous other surveys and studies, show that since the rise of Trump in the Republican Party, attitudes towards racism have become a more significant factor than economic issues in determining voters’ party allegiance. According to an October 2017 Politico/Morning Consult poll, 45% of voters thought Trump was a racist while 40% thought he was not. According to an August 2016 Suffolk University poll, 7% of those planning to vote for Trump thought he was racist. The authors document that in the first year of Trump’s presidency, there were 83 racial actions and 173 environmental actions; meanwhile there were 271 instances of racial speech and 22 instances of environmental speech. Pulido et al. published a study in 2018 comparing racism and environmental deregulation during the first year of Trump’s presidency.

The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history. Trump responded with tweets claiming the Puerto Rican leadership were “not able to get their workers to help” because “They want everything to be done for them” while claiming federal workers were doing a “fantastic job.” As the death toll reached into the thousands, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and others criticized the federal government and suggested racism was partially to blame for the insufficient response. According to two people who attended the meeting, Trump asked caucus members if they personally knew new cabinet member Ben Carson and appeared surprised when no one said they knew him. The question was part of Trump’s campaign rhetoric that was seen as characterizing all African Americans in terms of helpless poverty and inner-city violence.

Shaun Donovan, the former secretary of the Housing and Urban Development department who is responsible for the creation of the policy, said that “Trump’s tweet is racist and wrong…” Some suggested that the comments by Trump were intended to shore up support among white suburban voters, noting that the day before this tweet Trump had posted a video of a white couple in front of their house angrily pointing guns at protesters. At a rally in Houston in October 2018, Trump stated “You know, they have a word—it’s sort of became old-fashioned—it’s called a nationalist. And I say, really, we’re not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, okay? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist. Nothing wrong. Use that word. Use that word.” Trump later denied that there was any racial connotation connected to his use of the word. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said, “America’s president is a racist and this is the proof. His hateful rhetoric has no place in the White House.” Representative Tim Walz of Minnesota said, “This is racism, plain and simple, and we need to call it that. My Republican colleagues need to call it that too.” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that Trump’s comments “smack of blatant racism—odious and insidious racism masquerading poorly as immigration policy”. Vice President Mike Pence stated that he “knows the president’s heart”, and that Trump’s goal is to reform the immigration system so that it is merit-based regardless of race, creed or country of origin, encouraging immigration by those who want to “contribute to a growing American economy and thriving communities.” Some Republican lawmakers denounced Trump’s comments, calling them “unfortunate” and “indefensible”, while others sidestepped or did not respond to them. In a tweet to mark the first anniversary, Trump stated “The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!” Critics contended that the wording “all types of racism” could be seen as a veiled defense of white nationalists, similarly to his “both sides” remarks on the rally. At a Somali support rally following Trump’s comments the Portland mayor welcomed the city’s Somali residents, saying, “We need you here.” Maine Republican US senator Susan Collins commented, “Mr. Trump’s statements disparaging immigrants who have come to this country legally are particularly unhelpful. Maine has benefited from people from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and, increasingly, Africa—including our friends from Somalia.”

Republican presidential rivals were quick to respond on his wavering, and Senator Marco Rubio stated the Duke endorsement made Trump un-electable. Trump and his allies have often pointed to record-low unemployment numbers among blacks and Hispanics during his presidency as evidence that he is not a racist and that his administration is benefiting racial minorities. In a 2019 response to mass shootings he stated “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy”.

• Green’s articles of impeachment assert that Trump has “brought the high office of president of the United States in contempt, ridicule, disgrace and disrepute” and “has sown discord among the people of the United States”.
• In October 2016, when Trump campaigned to be president, he said that Central Park Five were guilty and that their convictions should never have been vacated, attracting criticism from the Central Park Five themselves and others.
• At one point, he set up the left as having the goal of not making America better, but trying to defeat America.” Speaking on CNN, Dianne Pinderhughes, professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, said “Trump’s racism is not subtle at all.

In August 2016, Trump campaigned in Maine, which has a large immigrant Somali population. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Trump doubled-down on the assertion, insisting that “there were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations”. At a rally in Birmingham, Alabama on November 21, 2015, Trump falsely claimed that he had seen television reports about “thousands and thousands” of Arab Americans in New Jersey celebrating as the World Trade Center collapsed during the 9/11 attacks. On August 19, 2015, two white men (who later pled guilty to the attack) assaulted a man who was sleeping outside a subway station in Boston.

Moving date of Tulsa rally

The memo instructed Federal agencies to “begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory,’ ‘white privilege,’ or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.” Trump cited conservative media reports and retweeted Twitter posts to describe the policy. The tweet included an embedded video showing several pro-Trump senior citizens in Florida having an exchange with anti-Trump protestors and supporters of Black Lives Matter as well as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The phrase had been used previously in 1967 by a Miami police chief, Walter Headley, that was widely condemned by civil rights groups and repeated in 1968 during the presidential campaign of segregationist George Wallace. They asked when would Americans declare that they “have had enough” of Trump’s words and actions, which both attract and shield “white supremacists who consider people of color a sub-human ‘infestation’ in America … The question is less about the president’s sense of decency, but of” Americans’.

Cheadle also said “we just haven’t had people called the names publicly that we have had with this administration.” According to polling data during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump was receiving little support from African Americans. Prior to and during the 2016 campaign, Trump used his political platform to spread disparaging messages against various racial groups. Speaker of the House and a Trump supporter, Republican Paul Ryan commented, “I disavow these comments. Claiming a person can’t do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable.” Former Apprentice contestant and former Trump administration communications director Omarosa Manigault Newman stated that Trump used “the N-word and others.” Bill Pruitt, co-producer of Season One of The Apprentice has also stated that Trump used a racial slur during filming of the show.