Stephan: If you are a Jew, or a Black person, or a Hispanic and you have even considered voting for Trump, you need to sit down and talk to your better self because the truth is if you are any of those things you need to admit to yourself that Donald Trump holds you in contempt as a lesser being. He doesn't even want to shake your hand.
Trump loathes Jews
A new report claims that President Donald Trump has privately accused American Jews of being more loyal to one another than to the United States.
Specifically, the Post’s sources say the president “has muttered that Jews ‘are only in it for themselves’ and ‘stick together’ in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties.”
Additionally, these sources say that Trump “has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments,” while also telling aides that he “could never understand” why first lady Melania Trump would ever want to visit Africa.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
A former White House official tells the Post that, when challenged by aides on his comments, Trump would say, “No one loves Black people more than me.”
Another former official said that their best defense of Trump is to […]
Stephan: Here is Trump's latest racist action. Short of holding a press conference wearing a KKK hood how much clearer does Trump have to make it that he is a racist who considers Black people, Brown people, Jewish people, and Muslim people lesser beings?
President Trump announced late Tuesday that the White House attempt to halt federal agencies’ anti-racism training would be expanded to block federal contractors from “promoting radical ideologies that divide Americans by race or sex.”
Why it matters: The executive order appears to give the government the ability to cancel contracts if anti-racist or diversity trainings focused on sexual identity or gender are organized. The memo applies to executive departments and agencies, the U.S. military, federal contractors and federal grant recipients.
Details: The White House said its order would “prohibit Federal agencies and Federal contractors from conducting training that promotes race stereotyping, for example, by portraying certain races as oppressors by virtue of their birth.”
The memo denounces “blame-focused diversity training” and “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating” while acknowledging that “training employees to create an inclusive workplace is appropriate and beneficial.”
The president tweeted: “Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”
The big picture: Trump signed an order last week to “promote patriotic education” through an effort called the […]
Stephan: I believe we are witnessing an attempted coup by Trump and the Trumpers. Trump is pursuing three avenues, hoping one of them will let him stay in power. First, a blatant attempt to throw out the election into chaos by claiming the popular vote has been rigged. Second, if that works to move it into the Supreme Court, which is why he is so adamant about getting a justice installed. Third, to subvert the Electoral College by restructuring it at the state level in states where Republicans control the legislature. so that it does not respect the popular vote. The only thing that will stop this evil is a vote so overwhelmingly against Trump that it cannot be challenged. But be very clear, an attempted coup is underway.
Kentucky polling place Credit: kentuckytoday.com
There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.
The danger is not merely that the 2020 election will bring discord. Those who fear something worse take turbulence and controversy for granted. The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery.
Something has to give, and many things will, when the time comes for casting, canvassing, and certifying the ballots. Anything is possible, including a landslide that leaves no doubt on Election Night. […]
Stephan: The thing about Trump is that he telegraphs what he is going to do, and in this instance I don't know how much clearer he could make it that he is planning a coup to keep himself in power.
Trump planning a coup
President Donald Trump was asked Wednesday whether he will commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose this fall to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The president declined to do so.
“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.”
Pressed further, Trump said: “We’ll want to have — get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer frankly, there’ll be a continuation.”
When asked by Fox News’ Chris Wallace in June whether he would accept election results, Trump said he would “have to see” and claimed that mail-in voting will “rig the election.”
Trump has repeatedly assailed mail-in voting as widely fraudulent though he and his campaign have released no evidence proving such. Despite the fact that the president and first lady Melania Trump have voted by mail and that his campaign and Republicans have encouraged […]
Stephan: When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and 65, I thought America was finally going to get past the cancer of racism. Boy was I wrong. We have a president whose racism puts George Wallace and Orville Faubus to shame, and he is doing everything he can to stimulate racist hatred in his cult.
Trump and Trumpers Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post
In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments, according to current and former U.S. officials.
After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.
Trump’s private musings about Hispanics match the vitriol he has displayed in public, and his antipathy to Africa is so ingrained that when first lady Melania Trump planned a 2018 trip to that continent he railed that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.”
When challenged on these views by subordinates, Trump has invariably responded with indignation. “He would say, ‘No one loves Black people more than me,’ ” a former senior White House official said. The protests rang hollow because if the president were truly guided by such sentiments he “wouldn’t need to say it,” the official said. “You let […]
