Running an openly racist campaign

Max Boot
Columnist
July 5, 2020 at 10:00 a.m. EDT

... President Trump, an aspiring authoritarian, based his 2016 campaign on fomenting fear of Mexicans and Muslims. In 2018 his midterm campaign was based on (unsuccessful) scaremongering about caravans of refugees from Central America. So how will he stampede voters into supporting him this year?

The Islamic State’s caliphate no longer exists and, because of the pandemic, the U.S. borders are closed. There are no more caravans — or immigrants of any kind — for him to inveigh against ...

... even as case numbers are hitting new highs, Trump has neither the ability nor the aptitude to battle this enemy. His response amounts to a combination of wishful thinking (“I think that, at some point, that’s going to sort of disappear, I hope,” he said last week) and fatalism (the White House’s new message is “Learn to live with it”) ...

The #MeToo and Black Lives Matters movements have done a world of good by calling attention to the abuses of a power structure dominated by white men. But their very success threatens Trump’s white supporters. They won’t give up their privileges without a fight.

That’s who Trump was addressing on Friday night in a speech that was by turns deranged and disingenuous ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/05/trump-is-running-an-openly-racist-campaign/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most