Trump’s white nationalist agenda moves forward
Even as Trump was visiting the victims of a white nationalist massacre, and the White House was putting out campaign ad videos exploiting his visit, Trump was advancing his white nationalist agenda to show the most dangerous parts of his base that he’s still with them. Here’s how:
1. ICE raids
- ICE agents in Mississippi arrested 680 people yesterday in a series of workplace raids in food processing plants. In the typical cruel fashion of the Trump administration, ICE failed to make any plans to care for the workers’ children, many of whom are U.S. citizens, leaving them to fend for themselves with no idea when—or if—they’d see their parents again.
- Many of the children only found out their parents had been taken after coming home from school to find themselves locked out of their homes. Instead, local volunteers and neighbors stepped in to set up a shelter at a local gym for the children to stay overnight. The agency’s disregard for the children’s wellbeing goes against ICE’s own standards. This is Trump’s America: “Most children are still devastated and crying for their parents and can’t eat.”
Share this video to make sure everyone knows the extent of the Trump administration’s cruelty:
2. Protecting white nationalists’ ability to spread online hatred
- Trump’s White House is circulating a draft executive order to “address allegations of anti-conservative bias by social media companies.” In other words, Trump wants to make sure social media companies are forced to carry white nationalist propaganda far and wide without interference.
- Just like he rants about “fake news,” Trump has complained in the past about the “censorship” against conservatives on social media platforms and hosted a social media summit full of his most abhorrent, racist, anti-Semitic followers.
3. Using the “both sides” argument
- Just like he did after Charlottesville, Trump used “both-sidesism” to equate murderous white nationalists and Antifa. He refused to acknowledge the role his own rhetoric and the role white nationalism played in the mass shooting in El Paso last weekend.
- It’s a common pattern with Trump. After he publicly launched several racist attacks against Democratic lawmakers of color last month, he claimed Democrats were playing the “race card” by calling out his racism and the way he spews white supremacist rhetoric.
On a day that should have made any president step back and look at the deadly consequences of hate in America, Trump was again consumed with political attacks on Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress.