Thursday, August 30, 2018

The Black and White of Trump's America

The Florida gubernatorial campaign started in earnest this week after the primaries produced two surprise candidates: a white Republican named Ron DeSantis who was personally chosen by Donald Trump, and a black Democrat named Andrew Gillum who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
And here's what the white guy said in his first Fox News interview:
"You know, he is an articulate spokesman for those far-left views and he's a charismatic candidate. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state."
So, in his very first national comment about his opponent, DeSantis managed to get in both ARTICULATE and MONKEY. He could have used thousands of other words, but he carefully selected those.
Bravo, sir! Way to stir up the racist base!
When called on it, naturally DeSantis feigned ignorance and his apologists feigned outrage:
How could anybody even think think this was about race? "Articulate" is a compliment! Our hero obviously wasn't calling his opponent a "monkey"! It's absurd that anybody could possibly think the white guy was intentionally using dog-whistle terms when talking about the black guy! If anything, this is reverse racism, which as everybody knows is worse than actual racism!
In Trump's America, racists and misogynists and anti-Semites need not sneak around in the shadows. They need not wear hoods. They need not work behind the scenes to push their divisive agenda.
No, they are free to come right out into the open and do their thing ... whether it's "some very fine people" marching with torches and chanting "blood and soil" ... or a white gubernatorial candidate using "monkey" in his first public comment about his black opponent.

No comments:

Post a Comment