This election is interesting because Republicans have never been so vocally calling out another Republican on racist comments.
I wouldn’t pretend to have read or heard everything Trump has ever said relating to race, but I have yet to hear or read of him saying anything that’s directly racist in the sense of denigrating another race. He advocated non-importation of Muslims, but Muslims are not a race. He remarked that Judge Curiel is “Mexican”, but then added “which is fine”. I think he began to complain about bias against him by Judge Curiel because of Trump’s immigration policy, but never completed the thought.
And, too, he said Mexico is not sending us “their best”. Well, might be true or untrue, but that’s not “racist”.
Maybe somebody will point out to me, from a reliable source, when Trump directly said some race or other is inferior or some other derogatory, and truly racist, thing like that.
But Repubs like George Will are joining those who call Trump “racist”.
I think we have been so well trained over the years to think of the slightest reference to race or even things that can be construed that way as “racist” that we flee like starlings from a rubber owl on a rooftop.
One remembers that ad (wasn’t it Red Cross?) that was called out for a “racist” poster that failed to have the exact proportional racial mix in a cartoon of a bunch of kids in a swimming pool.
It has been commented that the cheapest way to shut down conversation is to assert that something is “racist” in it. I think that’s true. I’m not surprised that Dems throw the epithet around. That’s what they do. But for people like George Will to run and hide when he hears it?
I think we have lost our courage. We might have a constitutional right of free speech for now, but when we self-deprive ourselves of it for flimsy reasons, I think things have come to a poor pass.
