Sequence of Events Reaffirms Trump’s Commitment To His Racist Base.
Let’s review the events in order of occurrence.
1. President Trump argues four minority members of Congress should go back to the “broken and crime infested” countries they came from. Three were born in the United States, but Trump’s usual disregard for facts is not the point.
2. At a campaign rally Trump’s supporters chant “send her back” about one of those members of Congress. Trump basks in it.
3. White supremacist, right down to the all to standard white supremacy manifesto, deliberately targets Hispanics in a mass shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, in an explicitly stated effort to terrorize them into going back to where they came from.
4. Just three days after the El Paso white supremacist’s massacre, Fox News host, and Trump mouthpiece, Tucker Carlson declares white supremacy a hoax. Carlson, who previously aired a segment echoing “The Great Replacement” theory at the core of white supremacist mass shooter’s motivations, compared it to the “Russia hoax,” claiming white supremacy is just “a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.” He practically mocked the deaths from the white supremacist shooter stating white supremacy “not a real problem in America.”
5. Fox News host Shepard Smith, repudiates Tucker Carlson’s characterization of white supremacy as a hoax, stating it is “without question a serious problem in America.”
6. Trump takes to Twitter to condemn . . . Shepard Smith. Apparently while watching Smith’s show where he repudiated Tucker Carlson, or shortly thereafter, Trump tweeted.
Sometimes politics inconveniently requires that Trump condemn racists in response to racist atrocities. He generally tries to be as tepid about it as he can. It’s hard for him to do because they are an important part of his base. But he will always shortly thereafter find a way to communicate to the racists that he is really still with them.
That pattern continues. Why? Because Trump can’t be as obvious as depicted in the picture below.
