Donald Trump appears to realize that the “Send her back” chant he instigated at a North Carolina rally on Wednesday night has frightened people.
The prospect of voters being whipped into a frenzy and demanding immigrants be forcibly deported even if they are sitting members of Congress is horrifying and has understandably been met with warnings that Trump is on the verge of crossing the Rubicon.
Of course, each and every time something like this happens, the same kinds of warnings are bandied about and, usually, the manic news cycle quickly surfaces another “bombshell”. This time, though, people sound genuinely concerned.
Read more: ‘Send Her Back’: The Lowest Point For Domestic Politics In Modern American History
So, Trump attempted a bit of half-hearted damage control in remarks to reporters at the White House on Thursday. Asked specifically why he didn’t stop the chanting, he said “Well, I think I did”. Apparently, the president will claim that because he started talking over the crowd, he somehow discouraged them. That glosses over the fact that it was his own 3-minute-long harangue against Ilhan Omar that prompted the chant in the first place.
(If the video does not load, please refresh your page)
Here’s the verbatim exchange:
Reporter: Why didn’t you ask them to stop saying that?
Trump: Well, number one I think I did, I started speaking very quickly and it really was, a loud – I disagree with it by the way – but it was quite a chant and uh, I felt a little bit badly about it, but I will say this – and I did, I started speaking very quickly – but it started up rather fast as you probably noticed.
Yes, yes we did “notice”, actually. And, again, the reason it “started up” in the first place is because the president spent the preceding 3 minutes implying that Omar is a terrorist. That is not hyperbole. If you’ve seen the unfortunate video (you can watch it at the link above), the idea that Trump did not intend to stir up the crowd by painting Omar as a national security threat is wholly ridiculous.
Asked if he will “tell your supporters never to say that again”, Trump demurred. “I was not happy with it”, he stammered, “I disagree with it, but I didn’t say that, they did”.
This is just another example of Trump claiming that we all haven’t seen and heard what we’ve seen and heard over the past three days. The president has said or otherwise suggested that Omar should be sent back to Somalia at least a half-dozen times, both on Twitter and in remarks to reporters carried on live television.
You can be absolutely sure that by the time the 2020 campaign gets rolling in earnest, “Send her back” will become as ubiquitous as “Lock her up”. Trump’s supporters will be chanting it at every rally and he’ll respond exactly as he responded on Wednesday evening: He’ll bask in the cacophony and pace around the stage, soaking in all the glorious hate effusing from the people he’s brainwashed.
Stochastic Terrorism.
Instead of coming across as a doctrinaire ultra liberal Democrat, I suggest that you read the remarks by the 4 black Congresswomen this year and tell me that these remarks are not racist,antisemitic and do not encourage anarchy and violence. The Democratic Party is coming apart at its seams,with a number of the mainstream Democrats appalled at the discord spread by these four.The actions by the Democratic Congress yesterday while they were voting was one of the most embarrassing political events in history.
Combining the agreement by the Dems in the recent presidential debates and yesterday’s vote to back the 4 Congresswomen,
it is easy to conclude that the Dems stand for open immigration, anti- Israel and pro -Palestine, pro Antifa, free tuition , free Medicare for all , much higher taxes and
an even increasing smaller share of the economic pie for the middle class.
I can’t wait to see how the Dems are going to handle the inevitable discussion on reparations
Palestinians are also a Semitic people. Criticizing the actions of Israel’s right-wing government, and its perpetual occupation of and humiliations of Palestinians, is not anti-Semitism. You know what is anti-Semitic? Neo-Nazis. The KKK. Right-wing extremists who shoot Jews in their temples, surround them and terrorize them with racist tropes. In other words, Trump’s base.
Be a little bit skeptical, and source the accusations you are making. Do not read Breitbart or listen to talk radio. Actually watch a fifteen minute speech and listen to what these women have said, in their own words, and in full context. These women, all of whom are the victims of death threats, all of whom are operating within the system to affect change, are the furthest things from people seeking anarchy and violence. That is a slanderous lie. The people seeking violence are the Trump supporters going around committing mass shootings. The people seeking anarchy are the immigration goon squads randomly ripping apart immigrant communities and locking children in squalid kennels.
The Democratic Party is coming apart at the seems. So is the Republican Party. So are the mainstream center-left and center-right parties in Europe, Canada, India, Brazil, The Philippines, etc. The current system is not working for enough people, and people are expressing increased frustration, often manifested in ethnic nationalism. This is a global phenomenon, replicated in places as disparate as Ethiopia and Hungary. To conflate this anger with people trying in a political fashion to address popular needs with (gasp!) education opportunities and healthcare is a smoke bomb hiding your true affinities.
We have printed the verbatim comments on too many occasions to count. And, no, they are not racist, antisemitic and do not encourage anarchy and violence. the person who is openly and explicitly racist and encouraging anarchy and violence is the president. You seem to be in a state of denial about the current situation and who is on the right side of history. Also, you seem to not be well apprised of the current political climate. the reparations discussion already happened. how you missed that last month and this month is anyone’s guess.
“an even increasing smaller share of the economic pie for the middle class”
Hmm.
Where do most of the middle class work? For large corporations. Since the dawn of the ordained era of “trickle-down” economics with Reagan republicans, middle class wages have barely kept up with inflation, while the share of the pie that goes to the top 1% has gone parabolic. And I put trickle down in quotes, because when paired with the rise of anti-unionism, and corporate and wealthy influence on the political class since Reagan, pretty much any hole that would allow trickle down has been plugged. Go figure.
Meanwhile, corporations say workers should be happy with low wages because the corporations pay for the ludicrous protection costs of the healthcare racket on behalf of the workers. How much of this money that could have been higher wages goes to the shareholders of price-gouging pharma and insurance companies, instead of to the basic costs of providing medical care and incentivizing healthcare providers? How much economic mobility does this stifle when workers are unwilling to leave their job because they are shackled to the desk by their healthcare plan?
Now let’s think about the Trump Tax cuts (a perfect vessel for the trickle down ideology): a tax cut for corporations that does not in any way incentivize paying workers more. This is empirically true, just look at the amount of corporate buybacks since the tax cut passed. I am pretty neutral on the economic good of buybacks. Nevertheless, how in the world can one conclude that this was done to help the middle working class? Pair that with eliminating access to affordable healthcare, destroying our air and drinking water, fighting unions, fighting the minimum wage, fighting student-debtor protection, fighting infrastructure spending, fighting public transportation spending, fighting childcare support, etc. and I can’t see how you can imply that Trump and the republicans have the backs of the middle class.