Trump faced a moment of truth in Tulsa. He chose the low road.
PRESIDENT TRUMP faced a moment of truth as his reelection campaign kicked into high gear. He could double down on the politics of division, hoping to energize the minority of Americans who reliably support him and prevent or discourage as many others as possible from voting. Alternatively, he could, with modest efforts at conciliation and healing, expand the pool of voters willing to vote for him. Political self-interest seemed to dictate the second choice. Unfortunately, in his opening campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, he chose the low road instead. Whether by calculation, or because by character he is incapable of any other way, he opted for bigotry, division and mean-spiritedness.
Much of the attention on the Tulsa rally focused on the anemic turnout, but as consequential was the dark, inflammatory nature of Mr. Trump’s speech. There was no sympathy for the family of George Floyd, the African American man whose death under a policeman’s knee has ignited a movement in the country; no effort to bring the country together or offer a way forward. There was no sympathy for the relatives of the at least 118,000 Americans who have succumbed to covid-19. On the contrary, references to the protests and the pandemic alike were notable for their racism.
The novel coronavirus was “kung flu” — a term that Mr. Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway in March rightly dubbed “highly offensive” when she rebuked the media from suggesting that anyone in the White House would use it. People protesting against racial injustice and police brutality were “thugs.” Efforts to remove Confederate statues, symbols of white supremacy and human enslavement, were an assault on “our heritage.” He sketched a hypothetical about a “very tough hombre” breaking into the home of a young woman whose husband was away. He attacked several Democratic women of color, most odiously when he went after Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), for “telling us how to run our country.” Never mind, as Mr. Trump well knows, that she is a U.S. citizen and duly elected member of Congress who immigrated to the United States at the age of 12.
None of this is new or surprising coming from Mr. Trump. He promoted the “birther” fiction about the country’s first black president, campaigned for the Oval Office on an agenda rooted in attacks on Mexican immigrants and Muslims, and has shaped a presidency geared toward inflaming racial and cultural divisions. Maybe it was naive to think he could change his tune, even temporarily, even to save himself as he plummets in the polls.
In the event, his choice is both sad and clarifying. Sad, because his choice guarantees a long and ugly election season. Clarifying, because he makes more evident than ever the urgency of evicting him from the White House.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-faced-a-moment-of-truth-in-tulsa-he-chose-the-low-road/2020/06/22/426b4692-b4b0-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html
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