#race-and-politics

#race-and-politics

That was the central concept in an all-too-representative Democratic effort to explain away the mass movement aligning behind Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Back then, the liberal commentariat was mocking the notion that Trump's supporters were motivated by questions of economic policy like trade and globalization. What really mattered to the MAGA faithful, in this overconfident diagnosis, was pure race hatred; the alleged economic worries fueling the Trump phenomenon were really only a fig leaf for a resurgence of white supremacist rancor on the right.

And still others condemned the hollowness of terms like people of color and BIPOC for falsely suggesting non-white solidarity where there is mostly just adjacency. Those reactions, contrary to what both centrist and right-wing commentators suggested, weren't about Black resentment over mere political divergence. They arose, instead, from the weariness of a collective historical memory that prompts Black folks to read between the lines of the newest chapters in a very old story.

CNN's Victor Blackwell wasn't quite buying President Donald Trump's claim that Black women and Chicago are screaming for the National Guard to fight crime in the city. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump, who deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. this month ostensibly to fight crime, said Chicago and New York are next. For good measure, he added that Black women in Chicago are especially clamoring for the Guard.

We have this event in December. It's going to be a very safe. Gianni, you can walk on the street with your beautiful wife, can take her to dinner, can get a reservation which I doubt. GIANNI INFANTINO: They're all full, the restaurants. [Laughter] TRUMP: I heard that too, the restaurants are all full. Since we've been doing this, they are doing great. And many new restaurants will open because as you know, many restaurants closed. Many restaurants closed because the crime was so bad. This will be one of the safest places anywhere on earth.