It’s increasingly difficult as the days go by for the Trump team to claim that they’re actually on the side of marginalized communities in the United States like black Americans. This past Saturday, Mercedes Schlapp, who serves as a senior adviser to Trump’s re-election campaign, retweeted a video of a man in McAllen, Texas, who was swinging a chainsaw at a group of protesters and ranting against black Americans, who he used the n-word to refer to. There is absolutely no way that Schlapp saw the video and did not see that it featured a man swinging a chainsaw and screaming at people, although she eventually claimed that she did not watch to the point in the video when the attacker used the n-word.
Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp boosted a tweet that lauded a man in Texas in a viral video as he yelled the n-word and wielded a chainsaw to chase away anti-racism demonstrators. https://t.co/O0L5Yv0vB1
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 6, 2020
The chainsaw-wielding racist was arrested after video of his meltdown emerged, local media reports. In the video, the attacker screams:
‘Go home! Go home! Don’t let those fucking n***ers fool you! Don’t let those fucking trash Antifa bullshit people fool you! Don’t let those fucking assholes over here lie to you! Don’t let them lie to you!’
Check out the video that Schlapp originally retweeted below (the video contains foul language):
That’s how to do it https://t.co/acPy7VOOEK
— LATINO TOWNHALL (@LatinoTownhall) June 6, 2020
The video is only about 30 seconds long in total, so Schlapp’s excuse that she didn’t actually see the part where the man shouts the n-word isn’t entirely credible. Besides — that’s not the only issue here! There’s also the problem that the man ran up on a group of apparently entirely peaceful protesters and was swinging a chainsaw. Does the Trump campaign approve of swinging chainsaws at peaceful protesters?
Schlapp’s original retweet was of a post from a Twitter account going by “LATINO TOWNHALL,” which markets itself in its bio as a pro-Trump account. After POLITICO questioned Schlapp about the retweet, she deleted it and reposted a different version of the video that edited out the n-word.
This. A white terrorist threatened people with a chainsaw, and, Mercedes Schlapp not only retweeted the video, but congratulated the attacker. She is literally applauding racist violence
these are not very good people. These are the thugs. The protesters are the good people https://t.co/9Np5wRNXQz
— Howard ✡ (@HowardA_Esq) June 6, 2020
After POLITICO posted a story about the incident, she deleted that second retweet as well and issued a statement:
‘I deeply apologize and I retweeted without watching the full video. I deleted the tweet. I would never knowingly promote the use of that word. This is time for healing the nation and not division.’
It is laughable for her to talk about the importance of “healing the nation” when it’s still unclear if she has any problem at all with a man screaming and swinging a chainsaw at a peaceful, small group of demonstrators standing on a sidewalk. POLITICO notes that Schlapp recently claimed at an online campaign event that “President Trump has delivered unprecedented opportunity for black Americans” — but what does that even mean?
Her retweets lauding an attack on peaceful protesters make her actual stance clear, as do the president’s own tweets and other public statements that feature racist diatribes against his opponents. Trump, remember, insisted that four Congresswomen of color — all of whom are American citizens, obviously — should “go back” where they came from, and that particular meltdown is far from an isolated incident on the president’s part.
