So Trump just told the Sqaud (AOC, Omar, Pressley, Tlaib) that if they don't like the USA they should go back to their own, miserable, misbegotten countries.
Some thoughts:
1) The comment is over the top. Only Omar was born abroad, in Somalia. For some reason Somalis have come here expressly to become an aggrieved minority. So in her case, the request to go home and fix Somalia first before she tries to fix us may not be too far fetched. The rest were born in the US. AOC is of Puerto Rican ancestry, in which case she's an American back many generations.
2) The comment is not racist. It is a criticism of four individuals. It may be stupid, over the top, uncivil, etc., but it does not apply to any large group of citizens on the basis of race. There's nothing there that even remotely implies that all Blacks should go back to Africa, or some such.
3) It's a Godsend to the Squad. AOC must be overjoyed--it puts her squarely in the national spotlight. Their professed indignation is purely for show.
4) It won't hurt Trump at all. In a recent poll I read that AOC has a national approval rating of 13%--far below Trump's 46%. I have no data on Omar (who really is a racist), but I doubt she'd clear the single digits. The Squad is wildly unpopular, and widely perceived as representing what's wrong with America.
5) The real target of the attack is Nancy Pelosi, who is now between a rock and a hard place. She has been trying to diminish and isolate the Squad as nothing more than four votes in Congress. In return they've tarred her as racist (which she doesn't deserve any more than Trump). But now she's forced to stick up for them, and further, after a call-out from the President they're no longer just four irrelevant votes. Then Trump is claiming to support Pelosi--which is as embarrassing as it will be hard to disown.
6) Pelosi's predicament will make it much harder to keep control of the House in 2020. Swing-seat voters hate the Squad--and if Pelosi goes all squaddy they won't vote for Dems.
7) The 20 little dwarfs (Dem candidates) are similarly challenged--they either go all-in, Squad-crazy, or they end up siding with Trump. Liz has already picked the Squad--which will likely doom her presidential campaign. (Unless she can somehow credibly disown them later.)
So as silly and over-the-top as it sounds, Trumps tweets are a stroke of political genius. Now all he has to do is watch the shit fly as the Dems tear each other apart.
Further Reading:
Trump is a Rorschach test--you can impute to him almost any opinion you wish. For the Left it was all 'Russia, Russia, Russia' until Mueller put a stop to that, though some Dems are still on that bandwagon. But most of them have now moved on to "Racist, Racist, Racist'.
ReplyDeleteTrump is encouraging them in that belief since it will be easy for him to run against that. After all, if you're trying to encourage people to vote for you, accusing them of RACISM is not a very good campaign strategy.
I, meanwhile, impute to Trump my own opinion, which is that race and racism are not important issues. Between the civil rights movement, some useful affirmative action efforts, and most importantly, a general rise in the standard of living, the race issue has mostly disappeared.
Short of totalitarian thought control, I don't see what else one could do about the problem.
If Trump is a racist, then everybody is a racist.