Trump Race-Baits Again

Weeks before the horrific events in Charlottesville, Virginia and President Trump’s failure to adequately address the issue, I wrote, “It is terrifying that his presidency emboldens white supremacists and that hate crimes have soared since the election.” Following Charlottesville, I cautioned that conservatives “are now at a fork in the road and have a choice to make: continue to support an obvious racist or turn away from hatred. Donald Trump was, is and will always be a single-issue politician.”

Unfortunately, nothing has changed. After being highly visible in assisting storm-ravaged red states Texas and Florida, Mr. Trump all but disappeared as millions of black and Latino U.S. citizens faced life-threatening conditions in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, even ignoring calls from Dem­ocrats like Nancy Pelosi to mobilize the military to address the crises on these remote islands. Rather than concentrate his efforts on providing the assistance these folks desperately need, Mr. Trump chose to hit the campaign trail in Alabama. I guess he felt it was necessary to shore up his base following a very bad week highlighted by news of an impending indictment of his former campaign manager, Paul Mana­fort, by Special Counsel Rob­ert Mueller, the failure of yet another GOP attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and an announcement by North Korea of a hydrogenbomb test over the Pacific Ocean in the coming weeks.