Trump, Race and the Can of Worms

The president stirs a new identity-based battle during a particularly polarized time.

The unfounded rumor appeared virtually the same day as his race for the White House: Contrary to what his biography and his passport claimed, Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii but in Kenya; therefore, he was not an American, nor was he allowed to be president. Conspiracy theories about the man who was to become the first black president of the United States date back to 2008 − encouraged by the ultraconservative tea party movement − but in 2011 they reached such a stifling degree − with more and more people answering in polls that he had been born in another country − that he felt compelled to release his birth certificate: Barack Hussein Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in Honolulu. At the forefront of that campaign was a famous businessman from New York who was considering going into politics: Donald Trump.

Since its genesis, this Republican’s political career has been inextricably bound to racial and racist controversy. He announced his candidacy in 2015 by agitating tension about immigration and linking immigrants living in the country illegally to crime. Throughout his presidency, different fires have sprung up intermittently. Last Sunday, he crossed a new red line when he tweeted that four ethnic-minority American congresswomen should “go back” to their countries.

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly … and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” he tweeted. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how … it is done,” he concluded.

He was referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New Yorker by birth, of Puerto Rican origin; Ayanna Pressley, AfricanAmerican, born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago; Rashida Tlaib, originally from Detroit, whose parents are Palestinian; and Ilhan Omar, who arrived in the U.S. from Somalia when she was a child and became a naturalized citizen as a teenager.

This is a country made up of immigrants: 13% of current legislators are children of immigrants, 5% were born in another country, and if you broaden the focus to show two or three generations back, one sees the story of descendants of millions of Italian, Irish, German or Cuban people who came to this piece of America looking for a better life. However, racial coexistence is still under strain. According to a Pew Research Center analysis from last April, six in 10 Americans think that race relations are poor, and almost an equal number believe that the president has aggravated the situation.

But that perception of Trump is extremely polarized between Democrats and Republicans. According to an Ipsos/USA Today poll from this week, 57% of Republicans agree with the messages posted by the president last week. On Wednesday, in his first rally after the controversy, the audience took to chanting, “Send her back! Send her back!” referring to Omar. A Muslim who is very critical of Israel and United States foreign policy, Omar has become cannon fodder for conservatives and is the congresswoman that Trump attacks most often. The sight of an entire audience − mainly white, judging by the images − asking for her expulsion was disturbing enough to cause the Republican president− who remained silent that night − to distance himself from the chants the following day. As he did in 2016, Trump appeals to the American citizen who feels wronged as a result of immigration and sidelined in the face of an increasingly diverse demographic. Trump is playing with matches in a particularly polarized political climate.

This week, many analysts also agreed in their description of the onslaught against the legislators as a diversion and as somewhat macabre fireworks designed to divert attention from so-called real politics and toward that boxing ring where Trump operates so well. In a press conference on Monday, the aforementioned congresswomen encouraged people “to not take the bait” so as not to get distracted “from the issues of care, concern and consequence to the American people,” as expressed by Rep. Pressley.

Are there consequences for the American people in Trump’s remarks? Andre M. Perry, researcher on race and structural inequality at the Brookings Institution, warns that “[r]acism should never be diminished as a distraction − history shows us well that the strategic deployment of bigotry is a default practice used to undercut democracy. Inserting nativist, xenophobic language,” he continues in a post, “has been the reliable prelude to codifying bigotry into law.”

During the campaign, following a San Bernardino, California, attack, Trump went as far as calling for Muslims to be banned from the U.S. “until our country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on,” in order to reduce the terrorist threat. One of his first measures when he got to the White House was a temporary ban on immigrants and refugees from seven countries with Muslim-majority populations.

“By downplaying racism as a distraction, we assist in the normalization of racism,” Perry insists. This is a challenge for the Democratic Party in its resistance to Trump: how to decisively respond to the attacks against certain consensus values of the United States, such as diversity, without allowing it to determine the agenda and the political conversation, now that Democrats have jump-started the 2020 electoral machinery.

The Republican’ president’s fixation with these four legislators can also be interpreted as making a calculation beyond identity. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Tlaib and Pressley arrived in Capitol Hill in January among the new batch of Democrats that were elected in last November’s midterm elections. They range from 29 to 45 years old, they get along, they are considered the image of the most progressive wing of the party and they are notable for being openly quarrelsome on social media, sometimes with members of their own party. They are nicknamed “the Squad” in Washington and enjoy a high media profile. However, when measured by their legislative scope, they have no effective power.

At a time when more than 20 candidates have embarked on the race to be the one who challenges the Republican candidate in the 2020 presidential election, Trump chooses to focus his attention on these four “socialist” congresswomen and stir the fears of his people against Communism and extremism. This is something Democrats are concerned about. The party is circulating a poll released by the political information website Axios, conducted in May on 1,000 white voters who have two years or less of college education. It shows that 74% recognized Ocasio-Cortez, but only 22% had a favorable view of her; Omar was recognized by 53%, with 9% viewing her favorably.

Fixing this image of the four women in the minds of Republican supporters is a way to stir up Trump’s base in order to strengthen his reelection bid. There is still a year to go before we know who his rival at the ballot box will be, and the Democratic race is wide open. Obama’s former vice president, Joe Biden − who is considered a moderate − leads the primary polls, followed by the leftist Sen. Bernie Sanders, while the remaining rankings fluctuate among Elizabeth Warren − a senator who has a very progressive economic agenda − and those who do not bear the mark of the socialist left, Sen. Kamala Harris and the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg. The party is deeply divided about the surest strategy to defeat Trump, with a more or less marked shift to the left. This week, however, they were all united in condemning the president’s attacks against the unruly “Squad.”