July 15, 2019

Most Racist Presidential Comment of My Lifetime?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- President Donald Trump’s vicious verbal assaults on four women of color who are members of Congress have sparked an avalanche of well-earned criticism, including from his own fervent supporters. As regular readers know, I’m fascinated by history, so I’ve been wondering where Trump’s tweeted comments rank among the most racist made by presidents (or successful presidential candidates) during my lifetime.Let’s start with what Trump said. He attacked the quartet as people “who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all).” He added “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”This is dreadful stuff. In the second place, three of the four were born in the U.S., so they’re already in the places from which they came. But in the first place, “Go back where you came from” was already a racist rallying cry when I was a kid, during the early years of integration. If the president of the United States is unaware of that history, Heaven preserve us.OK. So much for this past weekend. Now for my other contenders for most racist comment (again, I include those made by candidates only if they won):Fourth place: In 1983, during debate over the establishment of a national holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Ronald Reagan commented that “We will know in about 35 years” whether King was a Communist sympathizer. This was a reference to the sealed files containing records of the FBI’s surveillance operation against the civil rights icon.Reagan was echoing a theme popular along the right fringe of his day. In a letter to former New Hampshire Governor Meldrim Thompson, leaked around the same time, Reagan suggested that the push for a holiday was “based on an image, not reality.” Historians have since dismissed claims that King was a Communist as nonsense.Reagan telephoned Coretta Scott King to offer a personal apology and signed the holiday bill, after which the controversy largely faded.Third place: In April 1980, Reagan, not yet even his party’s nominee, stood at the Neshoba County Fair, a few miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were massacred in the sixties, and declared his support for states’ rights. A storm of criticism followed. Here’s the key passage: “I believe in states’ rights; I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level. And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the constitution to that federal establishment.”Over the years, Reagan’s many defenders have insisted that he has been misunderstood. He was expressing “a rather mainstream sentiment,” we’re told. Or, as a well-known 2007 essay by Deroy Murdock explains: “Examined honestly, the diabolical phrase, ‘state’s rights,’ ... dissolves into an innocuous call for Conservatism 101: A smaller federal government with revenues and public programs left as close to the people as possible.”But David Brooks, even as he agreed in a 2007 column that Reagan’s speech has been badly misrepresented, nailed the actual problem with the future president’s words: “It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase ‘states’ rights’ in any context in Philadelphia.”Exactly. Reagan needn’t have been trying to win racist votes; he could simply have been careless. But carelessness on so grand a scale — a failure to understand the significance of the words in that place and at that time — bespeaks at minimum a titanic ignorance of the language around which the horrific and violent struggle for equality was being waged.Second place: Jimmy Carter (also, at the time, only a candidate for the presidency) said during a news conference in 1976 that he would not try to alter the “ethnic purity” of neighborhoods. He pledged not to “use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods.” Lest he be misunderstood, he used the specific examples of “black intrusion” and “alien groups.”I’ve always admired Jimmy Carter, but he said what he said. After being hammered by both primary opponents and his own staff, Carter apologized two days later. He also rushed to endorse the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill that he had previously opposed. As president, Carter generally supported a strong civil-rights agenda. Still, the sting of “ethnic purity” lingers.That might have been the worst, if not for …First place: Trump, then a candidate, was challenged in 2016 by Pakistani-Americans Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son had died while serving in the U.S. military in Iraq. During the Democratic National Convention, the Khans took the stage to lambaste Trump for negative comments about Muslim immigrants. Asked about the criticism later, the candidate was obtuse and offensive: “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”Trump was skewered by critics, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and many in his own party. Ghazala Khan responded that it was grief, not religion, that caused her to stand silently beside her husband. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, said exactly the right thing — “Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American” — but Trump himself never quite managed to climb past his own thin-skinned pigheadedness.*That’s my list. Where should Trump’s latest vileness rank? I’ll leave that up to the reader, but it’s certainly a contender for a top spot. In any event, I have a prediction about the future.Unlike Carter, Trump is unlikely to endorse policies he once opposed to try to prove he’s no racist. Trump isn’t classy enough to apologize, as Carter did in 1976 and Reagan did in 1983. He’s also not bold enough to go out of his way to visit black leaders and address black organizations to assure them of his commitment to equality, as Reagan did in 1980.No. Trump is going to stay Trump, pretending that all his troubles are the fault of his enemies, making no effort to control the offensive nonsense that too often tumbles from his mouth.To contact the author of this story: Stephen L. Carter at scarter01@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include “The Emperor of Ocean Park,” and his latest nonfiction book is “Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster.” For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.



Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Olivia Munn Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Double Mastectomy Procedure | E! News
March 13, 2024
kUaEV1Kd3S0
Travis Kelce Shares Details From His Trip to Singapore With Taylor Swift | E! News
March 13, 2024
3YXi-Dgf4eg
Kate Middleton VIRAL Photo: Agency Addresses Photoshop Claims | E! News
March 13, 2024
S4VkO0TpkCY
Da'Vine Joy Randolph Plays 'Smash or Pass' With Iconic Moments From Her Career
March 13, 2024
vkPdJEF2BX4
Jean Smart Wears a Hotel Bathrobe to Present an Award to Hannah Einbinder l Power of Comedy SxSW
March 12, 2024
Bw7uVEYQev4
Lenny Kravitz Walk of Fame Ceremony
March 12, 2024
MlWq8BcnwhE
Dak Prescott Extortion Plot & Steph Curry for President? | TMZ Sports Full Ep - 3/12/24
March 13, 2024
jHFsrjs7OFY
A Japanese space rocket blew up after takeoff Tuesday, turning the sky into a fireball of smoke.
March 13, 2024
YkfJ3Qg8B7c
#KimKardashian and #BiancaCensori hung out at #KanyeWest's listening party Tuesday night!
March 13, 2024
EfwLLq6bx9k
‘Pioneer Woman’ Ree Drummond denies using Ozempic to lose 60 pounds
March 13, 2024
Omfjk1AlZ3A
Chrissy Teigen reveals her ‘boob lift scars’ in daring dress at Jay-Z & Beyoncé’s Oscars 2024 party
March 13, 2024
VxZ2qXAlpmU
Zoë Kravitz pokes fun at dad Lenny Kravitz's style during Hollywood Walk of Fame speech
March 13, 2024
j3-lcFu_1sQ
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
SC Freiburg - Bayer Leverkusen
17
Mar
USA: Major League Soccer
Atlanta United - Orlando City
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
West Ham United - Aston Villa
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Rayo Vallecano - Real Betis
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Championship
Leeds - Millwall
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Las Palmas - Almeria
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Villarreal - Valencia
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Sevilla - Celta Vigo
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
11
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Chelsea - Newcastle United
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Liverpool - Manchester City
10
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Real Madrid - Celta Vigo
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Atalanta
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Fiorentina - Roma
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
AC Milan - Empoli
09
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Werder Bremen - Borussia Dortmund
09
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Arsenal - Brentford
09
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Bologna - Inter Milan
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.