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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums*****Biden says Trump is America's first 'racist' president*****
The former vice presidents blunt assessment came during a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union after a health-care worker expressed concern that Trump continues to blame Asians for the coronavirus pandemic.[
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-says-trump-is-americas-first-racist-president/2020/07/22/867017e8-cc4b-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html
Proud liberal 80
(4,167 posts)Matter of fact, out of the first ten, only the two Adams werent
Voltaire2
(13,051 posts)That includes for example Lincoln. FDR of course built his winning coalition by assuring southern democrats that apartheid was safe.
Wilson was a horrific racist.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)His thinking had evolved. It's hard to read his Second Inaugural and not see how much it evolved.
Proud liberal 80
(4,167 posts)still_one
(92,216 posts)the category, I sure dont recall the press, or very many Democrats openingly calling trump a racist
Brother Buzz
(36,440 posts)Dimes to donuts he'll blow his response, BIGLY, but rolling out a shopping list of past presidents that fit the category. It's just the way he rolls.
elleng
(130,962 posts)re: trump.
As to the others whom posters here are trashing (but for Wilson,) I'd be cautious.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)Goodheart
(5,325 posts)"No, he's not! There were many racists before him!"
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,731 posts)of their campaigns or their administrations. Trump is as proudly and in-your-face racist as George Wallace.
JDC
(10,128 posts)misanthrope
(7,417 posts)in leading that sizable pack. The sad truth is that everyone, regardless of your own ethnicity, who grows up in this racist society holds or combats racist tendencies or beliefs. It's the inevitable byproduct of being acculturated in America.
Remember Jesse Jackson's commentary about being shocked at himself when he first realized that he tensed up one night glimpsing a young African American man approaching him on the street? Jackson had been in the Civil Rights Movement, had fought prejudice and bigotry his whole life only to come to full realization in middle age's tail end just how deeply the system had ingrained racism in all of us.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Wilson was a big fan of the KKK
rockfordfile
(8,704 posts)tman
(983 posts)mucifer
(23,548 posts)Skittles
(153,164 posts)racist, yes - the FIRST racist president? um, NO
tandem5
(2,072 posts)gollygee
(22,336 posts)I do appreciate the slam against how racist Trump is though.
Autumn
(45,103 posts)JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Has he heard the Nixon tapes? Woodrow Wilson was also notable and I'm not even counting 1800s or 1700s Presidents. Don't forget Reagan's dog whistles.
I had to check twice even click on the link to make sure the headline is real.
BannonsLiver
(16,389 posts)FFS just go with it. Joes not teaching history. Its a god damn campaign. Stop whining.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)I would add Lincoln at the time of his martyrdom was not racist. Neither was Grant or Harding.
Imagine the brouhaha if he named all the racist presidents!
BannonsLiver
(16,389 posts)Proud liberal 80
(4,167 posts)Imagine the brouhaha if he named all the racist presidents!
The two Adams, Lincoln, Grant, Taft, Harding, FDR, Truman, LBJ (he changed), Ford, Carter, Clinton, Obama.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)He apologized profusely and had Jewish confidantes during his administration. That being said he truly believed in the cause of the freedman as did Lincoln at the time of his martyrdom.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)As an ex- president Ford wrote an amicus brief in favor of affirmative action when his alma mata, the University Of Michigan's affirmative action program was challenged before the Supreme Court. As a member of the University Of Michigan football team he also refused to stay in a hotel when a black player was denied accommodations.
I wonder what he would make of Trump.
Proud liberal 80
(4,167 posts)Most Republicans over the last 50 years have been racist, but Ford was a good one.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)oasis
(49,389 posts)it would please many on this thread, but Joe would surely be pressed to list the other "racist" presidents.
What then.
Joe called out Trump for being a racist. That's fine with me.
SiliconValley_Dem
(1,656 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,355 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)The right has essentially boxed themselves in by stating the founding fathers, and past presidents, weren't racist because they were a byproduct of their time. Biden stating this makes it impossible for them to answer because then they'd have to concede their point past presidents were, in fact, racist and not a byproduct of their time like they've been telling us over and over again.
So, they either own up to the racist past or come back with a 'nuh-uh'.
Beautiful.
ProfessorGAC
(65,060 posts)Too many overreacting to the details seem to be forgetting how politics work.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)I guess some folks wanted him to say the U.S is irredeemably racist as if he was on track to become a tenured professor in sociology.
SMH
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)More than what someone says is their actions. The US also has a racist foreign policy as well at times like Iraq. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 but Bush used the Islamaphobia for support for Iraq.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)If Biden said Trump was one of many racist presidents do you think that would be helpful to his campaign?
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)gollygee
(22,336 posts)book_worm
(15,951 posts)Since nearly every president before 1960 and even a few after 1960 were racists. Some more than others. Yes, Trump is a racist but he's not the first one. The media will now be all over Biden for this. It's these traps he's got to watch out for.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,355 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,389 posts)Lot of misguided and hopelessly naive folks bought into that twaddle.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,355 posts)misunderstanding the concept of racism in order to prioritize white comfort.
ecstatic
(32,707 posts)I would say at least 40 others were as well, but it's time to focus on winning instead of hand wringing.
We can focus on the fine details of everything NEXT YEAR after Biden is safely in the White House!
Gothmog
(145,291 posts)meow2u3
(24,764 posts)Slight correction, Joe.
There have been racist presidents before, but they kept their bigotry hidden behind genteel code words, what we call dog-whistle politics now. Trump makes no secret of his hate; in fact, genodical racism is his policy.
Bucky
(54,020 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,389 posts)Hes not a history professor, hes running for president and the focus should be on THIS president, not Andrew Johnson or Jackson or the others.
delisen
(6,044 posts)belief system.