Racism
In the 1970s, Trump was sued twice by the U.S. Justice Department for discriminating against black people who wanted to rent housing from his father's company. He started his political career by arguing falsely and repeatedly that Barack Obama was not a United States citizen, and he later lied about having found evidence in support of his claims. During the presidential campaign, Trump was denounced by politicians on the right and left after saying a U.S. district judge of Mexican ancestry couldn't be unbiased in the Trump University fraud suit because of his heritage. House Speaker Paul Ryan said, "Claiming a person can’t do the job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable."
Timeline
| 2017.11.24 | Jeff Sessions is methodically reshaping the Justice Department to reflect his nationalist ideology and hard-line views, from calling for prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible to altering the department's legal stances in cases involving voting rights and LGBTQ issues some would call discrimination. washingtonpost.com (See also Jeff Sessions, Department of Justice, LGBTQIA, Nationalism, Immigration, Muslim Immigration Ban, Assaults on Civil Liberties) |
| 2017.11.27 | At an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers — Native Americans who served in World War II — President Trump used a racial slur when he said, "You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas," referring to Senator Elizabeth Warren. axios.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2017.11.29 | A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Theresa May condemned Donald Trump's decision to retweet anti-Muslim hate videos from British far-right leader Jayda Fransen, stating that UK citizens "overwhelmingly reject" the prejudiced rhetoric of the far-right. axios.com (See also Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Immigration, Muslims) |
| 2017.11.29 | Donald Trump has retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by the deputy leader of the far-right British political party Britain First. buzzfeed.com (See also Muslim Immigration Ban, Immigration, Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2017.11.30 | Donald Trump attacked British Prime Minister Theresa May over her criticism of his racist, Islamophobic far-right retweets. theguardian.com (See also Unpresidential Behavior, Unprecedented Actions, Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Nationalism) |
| 2017.12.04 | A divided U.S. Supreme Court let Donald Trump’s travel ban take full effect while legal challenges go forward, allowing the US to bar or restrict entry by people from six mostly Muslim countries, even if they have a relationship with a U.S.-based person or institution. bloomberg.com (See also Muslim Immigration Ban, Muslims, Nationalism, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Supreme Court) |
| 2017.12.06 | House Democrats overwhelmingly joined Republicans on Wednesday to defeat an attempt to impeach Donald Trump, but 58 Democrats supported the bid to consider impeachment over the objections of House Democratic leaders, who viewed the measure as a distraction in a Republican-controlled Congress. politico.com (See also Anti-Semitism, Unprecedented Actions) |
| 2017.12.08 | Donald Trump will not speak publicly at opening of a new Civil Rights Museum after the president’s plan to attend the opening erupted into controversy. nbcnews.com (See also Black Americans, Assaults on Civil Liberties) |
| 2017.12.14 | A White House senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security previously promoted conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama's birthplace, lamented the "Zimbabwe-fication of America," and mocked the LGBT community. cnn.com (See also LGBTQIA, Black Americans, Department of Homeland Security, Belief in Conspiracy Theories) |
| 2017.12.23 | According to six officials, Donald Trump said to his advisers in the Oval Office that 15,000 visitors from Haiti "all have AIDS" and that once the 40,000 visitors from Nigera see the United States, they would never "go back to their huts" in Africa. nytimes.com (See also Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Immigration, Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Stephen Miller, Nationalism) |
| 2018.01.11 | Donald Trump has a habit of making offensive comments about nonwhite immigrants. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2018.01.11 | President Trump insulted several countries while being briefed on a bipartisan immigration deal, saying, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” referring to African countries and Haiti, then suggesting that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway. washingtonpost.com (See also Immigration, Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2018.01.12 | After a career intelligence analyst who is an expert in hostage policy revealed that her parents are Korean, Donald Trump turned to an adviser in the room and seemed to suggest her ethnicity should determine her career path, asking why the "pretty Korean lady" isn't negotiating with North Korea on his administration's behalf. nbcnews.com (See also Women, Unpresidential Behavior) |
| 2018.01.16 | White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said claims that Donald Trump is racist are “outrageous,” because he hosted NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice.” bloomberg.com (See also Immigration) |
| 2018.01.18 | Haitian farmers and other laborers seeking to come to the United States through temporary work visas will no longer be eligible. mcclatchydc.com (See also Department of Homeland Security, Jobs) |
| 2018.01.19 | Trump administration appointee Carl Higbie resigned Thursday as chief of external affairs for the federal government's volunteer service organization after a review of racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT comments he made on the radio. cnn.com (See also Resignations and Dismissals, Homophobia, Women, Black Americans) |
| 2018.01.22 | Donald Trump’s voting commission asked every state and the District for detailed voter registration data, but in Texas’s case it took an additional step: It asked to see Texas records that identify all voters with Hispanic surnames, newly released documents show. washingtonpost.com (See also Voter Suppression) |
| 2018.01.24 | A request by the Justice Department to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census could shift the nation’s balance of political power from cities to more rural communities over the next decade and give Republicans a new advantage drawing electoral boundaries. washingtonpost.com (See also Department of Justice, Voter Suppression, Mick Mulvaney) |
| 2018.02.13 | President Trump's search for deeply conservative federal judges appears to have eliminated most African Americans and Hispanics, as only one is African American, one is Hispanic, five are Asian Americans, and yet 80 are white. usatoday.com (See also Black Americans, Asian Americans) |
| 2018.02.20 | A top official at the Department of Health and Human Services has been placed on administrative leave after a CNN KFile inquiry while the agency investigates social media postings in which he pushed unfounded smears on social media. cnn.com (See also Resignations and Dismissals, Department of Health and Human Services, Belief in Conspiracy Theories) |
| 2018.03.02 | William G. Otis, one of Donald Trump's picks for a seat on the body that sets policy used to punish 70,000 federal criminals every year has publicly called to abolish that agency, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and has a history of making racially charged remarks about crime. npr.org (See also Assaults on Government, Conflicts of Interest) |
| 2018.03.06 | Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is changing the mission statement of his agency, removing promises of inclusive and discrimination-free communities. huffingtonpost.com (See also Ben Carson, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Assaults on Civil Liberties) |
| 2018.03.15 | Ken Isaacs, the Trump administration's pick to head the United Nations organization that coordinates assistance to migrants worldwide regularly pushed anti-Muslim sentiment, including claims that Muslims were trying to impose Sharia law in the US. cnn.com (See also Muslims) |
| 2018.03.28 | The Trump administration is attempting to scale back federal efforts to enforce fair housing laws, freezing enforcement actions against local governments and businesses, including Facebook, while sidelining officials who have aggressively pursued civil rights cases. nytimes.com (See also Ben Carson, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Assaults on Civil Liberties) The department is aiming to roll back Obama administration attempts to curtail decades of racial, ethnic and income segregation in federally subsidized housing and development projects. |
| 2018.04.13 | A political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, Ximena Barreto, shared an image in 2017 that said "our forefathers would have hung" Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for treason, while also calling Islam "a cult" and pushed the false Pizzagate conspiracy. cnn.com (See also Belief in Conspiracy Theories, Department of Health and Human Services) |
Assessments
Scott Alexander–Slate Star Codex
Alexander considers the question, "Is Trump Racist?", in his November 2016 column, You Are Still Crying Wolf.
I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he’s “the candidate of the KKK” and “the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement” is made up. It’s a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. ...
How could Trump insult a Mexican judge just for being Mexican? I don’t know. How could Trump insult a disabled reporter just for being disabled? How could Trump insult John McCain just for being a beloved war hero? Every single person who’s opposed him, Trump has insulted in various offensive ways, including 140 separate incidents of him calling someone “dopey” or “dummy” on Twitter, and you expect him to hold his mouth just because the guy is a Mexican?
Jamelle Bouie–Slate
On Feb. 6, 2017 Bouie examined the White Nationalist project and advocates taking root in the White House, examining an essay written under the pseudonym, Publius Decius Mus:
he wrote, hailing the real estate mogul as the only figure who understood the stakes, who would beat back these “foreigners” and preserve America’s democratic tradition as Decius saw it. Not a tradition of pluralism, but one of exclusion, in which white Americans stand as the only legitimate players in political life. A dictatorship of the herrenvolk.