Donald Trump's latest racist troll: Exploiting Muhammad Ali to attack contemporary activists [View all]

[DonViejo]

Trump wants to use a legendary black hero’s legacy to discredit those who stand up to racism and injustice today

AMANDA MARCOTTE
JUNE 8, 2018 8:40PM (UTC)

Donald Trump, who has been chafing for a year-and-a-half under the realization that presidents aren't kings, has discovered, much to his delight, that there is one monarchical power the president holds: the unlimited ability to pardon people for federal crimes. He's been ramping up his use of it, largely in service of his twin goals to troll liberals and convince himself he's a real celebrity instead of a pathetic striver.

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Now Trump has told reporters he's "thinking about Muhammad Ali" for a pardon. As Ali's estate promptly noted, this is entirely unnecessary, since Ali's conviction for draft-dodging was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971.

This whole story was largely covered in the media as one of Trump's impulsive flights of fancy, especially as Trump's stated reason for it — "He was not very popular then, his memory is very popular now" — is even more dim-witted than most of the things he says, hard as that may be to believe. But Trump's impulse to inject himself into Ali's enduring legacy, in truth, is far darker and cleverer than that. Trump is, in essence (and as usual), trolling. He's exploiting Ali's memory to stick a thumb in the eye of the contemporary left and create a narrative on the right about his magnanimous nature that will ultimately serve his racist ends.

It's important to place this hypothetical pardon of Ali in context. For most of his presidency, Trump has been publicly obsessing about black NFL players who exercise their right to peaceful protest by kneeling during the national anthem before football games. In large part, this reflects his own personal racism — there's little doubt that Trump becomes unhinged at the sight of black people failing to show the deference he feels is his due. But it's also because, as he has repeatedly told people, he feels that stoking this issue fires up his base. Even if players aren't kneeling, he will pretend they are when he needs, say, a distraction from the Russia investigation.

Ali, of course, is the historical analogue to the kneeling football players of today. He was roundly demonized by conservatives in his day for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, and his conversion to Islam was initially not taken seriously by his critics or the mainstream media.

But all that was a long time ago. Ali is dead now and can't speak for himself, which means Trump can use him as a weapon to demonize whatever black athlete or sportscaster he's dangling in front of his racist base as a hate object. Trump is implicitly contrasting Ali's actions in the 1960s with the protests of today, hinting that today's protesters are ungrateful punks compared to someone like Ali. By musing publicly about this, he's inviting talk-radio hosts and Fox News anchors to argue that the anthem kneelers of today are somehow dishonoring Ali's memory.

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https://www.salon.com/2018/06/08/donald-trumps-latest-racist-troll-exploiting-muhammad-ali-to-attack-contemporary-activists/