Trump gleefully mocks Kamala’s name in racist rally speech
Trump has run out of strategies. The Republicans’ last-ditch effort to win the election by smearing Hunter Biden has failed and so the president has decided to return to the one thing he knows best: racism.
Several times this week he has attacked President Obama by overenunciating his full name, saying “Barack Hussein Obama” in a blatant attempt to otherize the first Black president by emphasizing his Arabic middle name. In doing so he has made it painfully clear that he thinks his base is full of racists. Which it is.
Today, Trump once again drew from the bigoted well, this time taking aim at Joe Biden’s soon-to-be vice president, Kamala Harris. He pretended as if her first name is difficult to pronounce, gleefully tapping into the biases of his crowd by pronouncing it as if it were the moniker of some extraterrestrial.
“Kamala. You have to pronounce it exactly right otherwise she gets very upset even though she can’t pronounce it right. You saw that the other day,” said Trump to rapturous applause from his crowd. P
Plainly put, there is no benign interpretation of this kind of rhetorical strategy. There is no reason to draw attention to Senator Harris’s first name beyond pointing out that it doesn’t sound Anglo-Saxon.
It must be noted that this is a particularly pernicious form of racism because it provides Trump with plausible deniability. We all know why he’s pointing out her name but if he is accused of racism he can downplay what he was actually doing. There is no excuse for this behavior and anyone who tells you Trump isn’t racist after watching this clip is either lying to you or willfully ignorant.
Trump claims that Kamala Harris can’t pronounce her own name correctly pic.twitter.com/yndPLxQxLU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2020
Blatant racism wasn’t the end of his speech though because Trump also decided to engage in anti-doctor rhetoric because apparently, 220,000 dead Americans isn’t enough for this man.
"You know, everything is Covid Covid Covid. You know that. You turn on the news, Covid Covid Covid Covid Covid. And you know, cases are up. Why are cases up? Because we test more than anyone in history" – Trump still hasn't figured out that coronavirus testing doesn't cause cases pic.twitter.com/nZuXUX4oi1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2020
