Racist In Chief

 Richardson's Recap began with cataloguing Trump's insane Tweet-stream over the course of an hour on Saturday. Included were these chestnuts:

Then, at 11:13, Trump posted an image of House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is Black, holding a baseball bat. The caption calls Jeffries “low IQ,” “a THUG,” and “a danger to our Country.”

...

Then, at 11:40, he posted an image of what appeared to be the reflecting pool full of algae next to one that appeared to be the reflecting pool clean and with a bright blue color. Above the dirty image was the label “Hussein Obama,” and below it, the caption “Photo taken Sept[ember] 29, 2012”; the clean one was labeled with “Trump” and “Coming Soon.” Over the two together, the caption read: “This is what our Country was before, and after, “TRUMP!”

We can talk all we want about Trump's devastating impact on policy. Richardson notes his apparent plans to draw down American troops in Germany, because the German Chancellor pointed out - correctly - that America has no strategic vision for the war in Iran. That's really bad!

However, any discussion of Trump's impact on America - and an impact that will sadly, I believe, outlast him - is how he has dragged all sorts of slurs and nastiness out into the open again. Social media has been flooded with the war "retard" as a slur, which is really pretty appalling. It's not just MAGA that uses the word, either. 

The racism that Trump mainlines into public discourse would have ended a career 20 years ago. As he spiral into narcissistic wounds from his collapsing support as he awful policies become real, he leans more and more into the transgressive nature of his poisonous discourse. This thrashing about is going to get worse and he will get worse until we get the inevitable moment when Mike Johnson will explain that he hasn't seen the quote where Trump used the N-word five times in a single sentence.

I remain convinced that Trump remains an avatar for about a quarter of the American people and the rest of his support is just partisanship. That quarter of the American people can go fuck themselves.