Eugene Robinson: President Trump is the master of abhorrent identity politics

[babylonsister]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-is-the-master-of-abhorrent-identity-politics/2017/11/02/e675bca8-c003-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.85688af2ee05

President Trump is the master of abhorrent identity politics
By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer November 2 at 7:33 PM


By now it should be clear that racism is a feature of the Trump administration, not a bug.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s hideous rewriting of Civil War history is merely the latest evidence. Can anyone really believe “the lack of an ability to compromise” caused that bloody war? Is it possible to become a four-star Marine general without knowing that the Constitution itself was structured around a compromise on slavery? Or that the first half of the 19th century saw a series of equally immoral compromises that let slavery continue?

snip//

With remarkable consistency, Trump has picked fights that portray white Americans as besieged, offended or disadvantaged by dark and alien Others. Rather than embrace the nation’s multicultural diversity, he blames it for a host of problems — crime, terrorism, drug abuse, economic stagnation. He encourages whites to fear the coming day when they are no longer a racial majority. He stokes anxiety by dividing the country into “us” and “them.”

snip//

When Trump miscalibrates and strays into explicit racism, as he did in the case of Charlottesville, there are expressions of shock and horror from fellow Republicans and even members of his Cabinet. But nobody renounces him, except senators who are about to retire. Nobody quits his administration on principle. Trump’s enablers meekly go back to the all-important business of cutting rich people’s taxes.

Making whites feel embattled and aggrieved is central to the Trump presidency. It is what makes him different from all other recent presidents, perhaps going back as far as Woodrow Wilson, who imposed Jim Crow segregation on the federal workforce. It is what makes Trump so corrosive to the national fabric.

There is one master practitioner of identity politics in the United States today. Shamefully, he lives in the White House.

[woodsprite]

1. The only master he is

Is true spelled either way - masturbator AND master baiter. (A troll who deliberately posts aggravating messages on a message board to elicitit responses).

[Nitram]

2. Dump is the master because he actually believes everything he says about Mexicans,

African-Americans, Muslims, etc, etc. He doesn't really care about domestic policy and foreign policy unless it relates directly to his income, but he really does hate all "those people."

[bucolic_frolic]

3. We need to reverse engineer some of their tactics - such as Fake News - and bulk up on credibility

We are in a war of legitimacy. Who is telling the truth? Trump keeps inventing stuff and trashing Democrats.
We need to win that war.