Trumping racism…and other things, too

Trumping+racism...and+other+things%2C+too

Editorial Board

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” said a press release by Trump’s presidential campaign staff on December 7.

Before, we go any further, it’s important that we’ve made clear that the Lasso does not endorse Donald Trump and his racist, lying, and frankly, fascist statements.

Now that’s out in the open, let’s analyze the above quote. How would Trump plan on differentiating between Muslims and other immigrants? It’s not possible to judge religion accurately just by looking at someone.

Does Trump plan to return to fascist and Nazi Germany when all Jewish people had their outermost garment embroidered with the Star of David? Maybe he’ll have Koran pins and make all Muslims hoping to enter the United States wear them. Or does he simply, and incorrectly, claim that all people who look Middle Eastern are Muslim? His choices for hypothetical enforcement are either fascist or racist and judging by his track record, it will probably end up being both.

Not to mention, that only 6% of terrorist attacks from 2002 to 2005 (the most recent available collective data set from the FBI) were executed in the name of the Muslim religion.

While Trump keeps his tap flowing of racist quotes, his rhetoric is filled with factual and hypocritical inaccuracies too.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” he said during his presidential announcement speech in June of 2015.

Sorry, Trump, you’re a little off here. In fact, your own race committed 71% of rapes in 2013, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey, above the representation of 68% of the white population in the United States. Around 9% of rapes were committed by the Latino population, below their 17% representation of the national population.

This is, as usual, but one example of Trump screwing with facts.

Trump believes, however, that his stances on building the wall on the Mexican border and his statement about their immigrants to the United States being rapists and criminals will not affect their feelings towards him.

“I’ll take jobs back from Japan and all these other countries that are killing us, and the Hispanics are going to get those jobs and they’re going to love me,” he said during his presidential candidate tour in Texas, at the Mexican border, in fact.

Of course there is a Trump Tower-sized amount of quotes to examine for racism, hypocrisy, and just plain lies. Among those are his proclamation that John McCain isn’t a war hero, Obama’s birth certificate being fake, and China creating the concept of global warming to make United State’s manufacturing less competitive.

Despite all of this, he still leads with 30.4% in the GOP presidential nomination polls. We find this shocking, and quite upsetting. But, according to Trump, it looks like he’s exactly in the arena he should be.

“Good people don’t go into government,” said Trump, on August 23, in an interview with Stephen Harper.

Amen to that, Donald.