Trump Whips Up Veiled Racism

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 25, 2011
All Rights Reserved.                                         

         Hoping to score points with the xenophobic right, 64-year-old real estate mogul Donald J. Trump made quite a splash questioning President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, despite the release of his State of Hawaii birth certificate, proving to  conservative skeptic Rep. Michele Bachman (R-Minn.) that the president was born in the U.S.  While the conspiracy nuts continue to hammer away at Barack’s credibility, Trump stooped to new lows suggesting that the president’s Ivy League pedigree was due to “affirmative action.”  “I heard he was a terrible student, terrible.  How does this bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” asked Trump, questioning the president’s qualifications.  “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into to it.  Let him show his records,” said Trump, ignoring that the 49-year-old president was a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School.

            Trump’s charges lay bare the outrageous nature of race bating trying to pigeon hole minorities into ignorant stereotypes.  On real conservative issues Trump falls on his face, especially when it comes to abortion and gay marriage.  No stranger to shady business deals and divorce, Trump is the last one to hurl bricks a Obama’s academic credentials and track record.  After transferring from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1981, Barack completed his degree in political science at Columbia University.  He was admitted to Harvard Law School in 1988, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1991, serving as the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.  Trump’s challenge to Obama’s credentials is so offensive, so vile and so off0the-wall it even makes Tea Party folks sick.  Trump had no such criticism of former President George W. Bush’s mediocre record at Yale and Harvard.

            Whatever Barack’s grades, he’s more than established his academic and work-related record.  Trump’s salvos hope to curry favor with Tea Party folks with whom he disagrees on virtually every issue other that bashing Obama.  Obama readily admitted in his best-selling autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” that he wasn’t always a stellar student.  “I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can’t get into Harvard,” said Trump, either showing either complete naivety or coldly calculated propaganda..  Trump knows that with the best grades and test scores it’s always a crap shoot getting into Ivy Leave schools, especially at Harvard.  Donald also knows that the real “affirmative action” is with the Ivies’ well-heeled donors and legacies for whom lowered academic standards are commonplace with admission departments.

            Trump claims no one knows anything about Obama, despite his long track record as a Chicago community organizer, career in Illinois state politics, U.S. Senate and now over two years as president.  No one really knows much about Trump’s real, behind-the-scenes wheeling-and-dealing, causing multiple bankruptcies while building his real estate empire, largely leveraged on inherited wealth.  “We don know a thing about this guy.  There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president,” said Trump, pandering the unending conspiracy theorists breeding more paranoia among certain xenophobic groups uncomfortable with minorities.  Trump isn’t interested in getting out the truth about himself or Obama, only scoring points with conservatives with whom he has little in common other than bashing Obama and will be forced to compete if he throws his hat into the ring.

            Trump’s focus on the “birther” controversy relates to his weak credentials on other key GOP issues, including abortion and gay marriage.  “I have more people that are excited about the fact that I reinvigorated the whole issue,” said Trump, answering why he chooses to focus on Obama birth status, even after the State of Hawaii released Obama’s official birth certificate.  Trump offers no answers what to do about the U.S. economy, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, only attracting white racist prone conservatives.  Trump watched carefully in 2008 while former Alaska Gov. Sara Palin, mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, also whipped up crowds worried about unfounded speculation about Barack’s religion.  Pandering to paranoid voters does nothing other can create more divisions in a country already polarized on key issues affecting the country.

             Trump’s Obama bashing takes the baton from Palin and now Bachmann, whose anti-Obama rhetoric hits new lows in nauseating vitriol.  Questioning the president’s academic credentials is a cheap shot, especially knowing that the well-heeled get more “affirmative action” or preferential treatment at getting into the Ivies.  “I congratulate him for getting the attention he’s getting,” said 2008 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chalking Trump’s bluster up to an elaborate publicity stunt.  Bashing Obama puts Trump in good stead with the xenophobic Tea Party crowd, more uncomfortable with Obama’s birth record than his liberal agenda.  Unlike his liberal friends inside the Democratic Party, Barack defied conventional wisdom perpetuating wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.  Trump’s antics prove that he’ll stoop to any low to score political points.

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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