It was easy to get confused trying to guess what Donald Trump would do about the young people brought to this country illegally as children. Would he act on his professed love of the “dreamers” or cater to his hard-line anti-immigrant base? Would he listen to Paul Ryan or Jeff Sessions? Would he side with business executives or Breitbart?
But it’s not really hard to tell what Trump will do on any issue. Just ask: What would a white racist do? If you can answer that question, you have a good idea which way Trump will go.
His record on the campaign trail and in office shows a clear pattern. He said Mexican immigrants are “bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He said the Indiana-born judge presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University was unfair because “he’s a Mexican.”
He accused China and South Korea of stealing our jobs. His budget included cuts in funding for prevention of HIV and AIDS abroad. He wants to reduce legal immigration by half. He pardoned former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of illegal racial profiling.
More recently, Trump exhibited a strong reluctance to disown the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. After finally coming forth with a condemnation of neo-Nazis and their ilk, he backtracked, blaming “both sides” for the violence.
There is a single unmistakable thread running through this entire fabric: race. The people he attacks or shortchanges are almost always nonwhite. And the pattern is too consistent to be accidental. What has Trump done, after all, that a white racist would not have done?
Some of his views are not subtle…
