Humiliating indeed.

[missroserose]

Listen to this man. He speaks the truth.

And merely by our listening, it will be another small victory for truthfulness, authenticity, and integrity.

Or at least, I hope so. Because God knows how desperately we need it.

Comments

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

When I loaded that page only the top video showed and I thought that I had woken up in a parallel universe. Bad bizarro Rose.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's not my fault you're too lazy to scroll down. Or read the title. :P

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

My prior statement all but states outright that I had at the time of posting.

[due27south.livejournal.com]

Ok not that I'm a fan of Trump or anything, and I was only half-listening while playing games... but I don't see where he says they'll never be American or calls them names... it sounds like he's saying yay, let's move past this onto real issues?

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

It's not the exact wording of what he says, but the context and the subtext, that make his attitude so heinous. Let me see if I can explain.

You may not be aware of this, but Trump has been one of the major recent trumpeters of the "Obama needs to prove that he was born in the US" crowd. Never mind that he's already done so, never mind that the evidence he furnished - the short-form birth certificate - is all that's ever been asked of any previous presidential candidate, and never mind that it's an utterly transparent move to grab media attention and conservative blog-time. He's been going on talk shows and news reports trumpeting the birther cause. Fine, we'll take that at face value.

Trump is (theoretically) launching a presidential campaign. His first action in the spotlight in that context is to spend almost all his media time pounding on an issue that [a] makes no effective difference to the running of the country and [b] was already resolved to the satisfaction of the highest authority in the land. So now that he's claiming credit for having forced Obama to release the long-form certificate (and also implying that "verifying" it is up to him, not, say, the State of Hawai'i or the federal government), not only is he putting himself above the US government in terms of authority, he's showing an incredible disrespect to both the government and the office of the President of the United States of America. The utter ego and presumptuousness of it all boggles the mind.

And that's not even taking into account Trump's social position. As a successful white businessman with gobs of money, he's about the definition of racial privilege. Obama may be President now, but he comes from a socially far lower point - and it wasn't that long ago in American history that the perception of his social inferiority would have been made explicit, rather than simply being implied. For someone who wants to lead a country that prides itself on equality of all its citizens, the way Trump projects the attitude of "I'm white and rich so you have listen to me and do what I say" is completely heinous.

Then there's the historical context. Again, it wasn't that long ago (as Baratunde notes in his response) that many states had laws requiring quote-unquote "literacy tests" or citizenship papers to be taken/brought in order for people to vote. Were these laws ever enforced for white people? Absolutely not. Were they routinely used as excuses to deny black people the opportunity to vote - to participate in the very basic part of our democracy? You bet your ass they were. (That's what Baratunde means when he refers to "literacy tests that get harder and harder the more you take them".) The fact that someone born with the kind of privilege Trump has - who has no conception of being treated any other way - is claiming to be the end-all authority on whether or not a black man - a black man who happens to be the President of the United goddamn States - is an American citizen is what makes him no better than a Klansman. The KKK's whole attitude was that black people were only deserving of human rights and basic respect if rich white people deigned to give it to them. How is that different from the way Trump is acting here?

Also, point of note - for all he goes on about how "now it's time to address the economy and foreign policy and blah blah blah", that's not, in fact, what he's now doing (http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/04/27/obama_s_college_grades_trump_wants_to_see_president_s_transcript.html). Because policy questions are hard and don't get media attention the way playing into people's racist notions does...