Thread. @ddale8 of the @TorontoStar live-tweets one of the softball interviews Trump prefers, which Fox talker Laura Ingraham. It's mostly the usual stuff, but part of Dale's thread recalled for me the question of how the Trumper Republican Party thinks about race.
2. So how does race work in today’s Republican Party, anyway? Black people are clearly, ah, disfavored: voter fraud measures and work requirements for food assistance are clearly rooted in prejudices about them. When Trump, as he did in the Ingraham interview tonight...
3... calls Florida gubernatorial candidate @AndrewGillum a "stone-cold thief," it's pretty plain at least part of his meaning is "black" (I wouldn't use African-American here, because it's imprecise. Trump doesn't seem to think much of African Africans either).
4. Hispanics are bad as well, especially if they use Spanish a lot and absolutely if they just got to this country or are on their way. Seize their children, call out the Army, etc., because they're invading our country. Except for Cubans, who are still freedom fighters.
5. Muslims are terrorists generally, especially if they’re Arabs or Iranians - but not if they’ve got money, & certainly not if they direct money to Trump family businesses. Then they are valued partners for stability and in the war on terrorism, People of the Orb as it were.
6. What about people of East and South Asian descent? What’s their status in Trump’s GOP? Are people of East and South Asian descent considered to be, in a manner of speaking, honorary white people? Are they instead viewed somewhat as were Indians or Malays were...
7... in the old South African apartheid state? That is, definitely not white but on a higher level than black? Or are they more like Muslims and Arabs, who are presumed bad unless they have money and spend some of it on Trump?
8. Or, if they frequently praise Trump in public and otherwise talk like Theodore Bilbo? I can think of at least one polemicist of South Asian ancestry -- a Presidential pardon recipient no less -- who fits that description. But it may not apply to many people.
9. Native Americans I assume are seen by hardcore Trumpers as light-skinned black people, to the extent they are regarded at all. The head Trumper's frequent, repetitive gibes at Sen. Warren, to which other Republicans never seem to object, are the basis for that assumption.
10. Race in America is more complicated than the white/black (in a few places, white/red) dichotomy older people grew up with. It may be that many Republicans, responding to Trump, are embracing a nebulous racism w/numerous exceptions & qualifications, subject to change. [end]
