Normal Republican politicians have always gone out of their way to distance themselves from evil people like this.
Here I want to remind you how Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and George W. Bush confronted these sorts of cretins:
George W. Bush addressed racism and the Republican Party head-on when he spoke to the NAACP's annual convention in 2000, ahead of the election that would vault him to the presidency."For our nation, there is no denying the truth that slavery is a blight on our history, and that racism, despite all the progress, still exists today," Bush said at the conference in Baltimore. "For my party, there is no escaping that the reality that the party of Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln."
He continued: "Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential."
In the speech, Bush outlined sweeping policy proposals for education, housing and health care, and promised that, if elected president, he would enforce civil rights laws and call out discrimination.
"Discrimination is still a reality, even when it takes different forms," he said. "Instead of Jim Crow, there is racial redlining and profiling. Instead of separate but equal, there is separate but forgotten."
When President Ronald Reagan addressed the group in 1981 he said those who are racist are out of step with American values.
"A few isolated groups in the back order of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about," Reagan said while addressing the NAACP convention in Denver.
"Recently in some places in the nation, there's been a disturbing reoccurrence of bigotry and violence," he said. "To those individual who persist in such hateful behavior … you are the ones who are out of step with our society, you are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America, and this country because it does what it stands for will not stand for your conduct."
Later, Bob Dole, in his 1996 presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in San Diego, was even more direct.
"If there is anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we're not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the party of Lincoln and the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise," he said.
What we are seeing today from the president of the United States is categorically different from anything we've seen in—at least—half a century.
Trump isn't using Richard Nixon's playbook. He's cribbing from George Wallace.
Never forget that the reason—the only reason—America is in chaos at this moment is because Donald Trump wants it that way.
thebulwark |
