Conservative News Outlet Points Out ‘Stupidity’ Behind Trump’s Racist Attack

By
Carissa House-Dunphy
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While most Republicans have either refused to respond to Trump’s racist attacks against four black and brown congresswomen, or worse, have defended his “go back to where you came from” tweets, a conservative editorial board is pointing out the “stupidity” of his attacks.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is typically a favorite retweet of Trump’s, although he’s happy to trash them as “fake news” whenever they are critical of him. On Sunday, they reported Trump’s tweets without noting the racist trope that he was using to bash the congresswomen.

The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier that:

Mr. Trump sought to paint the new unity in the Democratic Party, and the focus on the “squad,” as a positive development for the Republican’s own re-election bid. Mr. Trump and his political team have been eager to run against the liberal policies—such as the Green New Deal and the easing of immigration laws—that the four lawmakers support.

On Monday, Fox News’s Brit Human referred to Trump’s tweets as “nativist, xenophobic, counterfactual and politically stupid,” but he insisted that they weren’t racist. “Go back to where you came from” is a long-standing racial slur, and all four congresswomen are American citizens (three were born in the United States and one became a citizen at the age of 17). Trump insists that his criticism was political in nature and were calling out the complaints and resistance that the four had stated publicly. Of course, Trump himself built an entire presidential campaign on criticism of American leadership and policies, but he’s white and of European descent, so apparently this is still his country but not non-white people’s.

In their opinion piece, the editors blasted Trump for that political stupidity that Hume mentioned, noting his failed attempt to highlight the divide in the Democratic Party by uniting them against him.

‘As for politically stupid, Mr. Trump rescued Democrats from an intra-party feud that had been escalating for days. A smart opponent would have kept quiet and let it continue. But Mr. Trump intruded into the spotlight and let Democrats unite in denouncing him. Monday was consumed with another round of dueling insults with the press corps seeming to echo Democrats in calling Mr. Trump a racist, Mr. Trump denying that he is, and the President’s allies saying Democrats are anti-American.’

The conservative editorial board stuck to their conservative guns, saying that Democrats would lose a debate on the economy despite Obama’s historial jobs record and his rescue of the economy after its collapse. However, they recognized that Trump is once again using controversy to draw attention to himself when, this time, it’s entirely unnecessary to get that kind of media attention. As a sitting president, his words will be covered and reported on. Instead of sticking to that, he shot himself in the foot politically, once again giving Democrats a platform to unify around.

‘[Instead of sticking to talking about the] results of his economic policies. They’ll lose a debate over results, but they’ll win if the election is a referendum on character. Democrats want Mr. Trump to sound as if he’s the one who believes half the country is a ‘basket of deplorables,’ to quote the line that so damaged Hillary Clinton in 2016.’

Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license



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