Trump's Racist Behavior

Is cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump a racist? It is hard to know what thoughts are lurking around inside the head of someone, especially one whose brain has turned to mush as has Trump's. A fairer, and easier to answer, question is whether Trump engages in racism. To that, I think the answer is unequivocally "yes". To be fair, Trump's racism is often mixed with xenophobia and it can be difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins, but Trump's xenophobia is heavily influenced by race. For instance, Trump is very opposed to immigration, especially from what he calls "third world" countries whose inhabitants are likely to be non-white. However, he welcomes white South Africans. Trump's embrace of racism has been most obvious recently in his preoccupation with Somali immigrants, especially those living in Minnesota.

That Trump engages in racism is not a new discovery. Indeed, as far back as 1973, Trump and his father Fred were sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for systemic violations of the Fair Housing Act. The Trumps owned 39 apartment buildings and evidence showed that they routinely discriminated on the basis of race. One employee testified that a code on the front page of rental agreements was used to indicate that a potential renter was Black, something that would lead to the Trumps rejecting the agreement.

In 1989, Trump spent a reported $85,000 to run full-page ads in several New York City newspapers calling for the death penalty for the "Central Park Five," four Black and one Hispanic youths who had been wrongly accused of raping a white woman in Central Park. Trump's involvement in the case helped stir up racial tensions that may have contributed to the wrongful incarceration of the suspects. Meanwhile, Trump completely ignored the rape of a Black woman that occurred the same day. That victim was killed when the two assailants that had assaulted her threw her from the roof of a building. Later DNA evidence would connect another man, who had confessed to the crime, to the Central Park rape. Trump never apologized for his role in the wrongful conviction.

In 2024, while running for President, Trump, echoing now Vice President and reply guy JD Vance, repeatedly accused Haitian immigrants of eating pet cats and dogs. This was a baseless allegation, but it served Trump's purpose. By making an enemy of a population that was both Black and foreign, Trump was able to polarize the electorate. The choice that Trump presented to voters was standing with "real Americans" or with those nasty foreigners who were eating pets. The strategy worked.

Now Trump has found a similar target for generating polarization. This time it is Somali immigrants, especially those living in Minnesota. The Somalis are an almost ideal target for Trump. They are Black, foreign, Muslim, mostly Democrats, and living in a Democratic state led by former Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Governor Tim Walz. Helpfully for Trump, members of the Somali community have been involved in a number of highly publicized fraud schemes. Trump can stir up racism and xenophobia and damage a political enemy, while claiming the whole time that he is worried about combating fraud. Trump has recently unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol on the Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Trump's preoccupation with Minnesota's Somali community was evident in the aftermath of the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. which left one dead and another critically wounded. The shooter was an immigrant from Afghanistan who served in a CIA-supported paramilitary unit. On two separate occasions while talking about the shooting, Trump inexplicably veered onto diatribes about Somalis. In one case, this provoked a reporter to ask "What do the Somalians have to do with this Afghan guy who shot the National Guard members?" Trump’s response was "Ah, nothing. But Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They're ripping us off." It is interesting in itself how Trump has moved on from the National Guard incident. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that there have been no murders in Washington, D.C. In reality, there have been at least 19 murders since Trump deployed federal forces in D.C. and one of those, of course, was one of the Guard members that Trump deployed. He has already forgotten about the Guard member who was murdered.

As I documented in my blog post about Trump's insane night of 160 posts on Truth Social, many of Trump's "truths" during that bender were about Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant who represents Minneapolis in Congress. In multiple press appearances, as well as on Truth Social, Trump has been very derogatory about Omar and the Somali community at large. Probably the most shocking incident, but far from the only one, occurred on Tuesday when Trump was asked by a reporter about Somalis. He went on a long tirade during which he exaggerated the amount of money involved in the fraud cases and suggested the entire community should be held responsible. Trump went on to say that Somalis "contribute nothing" to either Minnesota or the U.S. and that he "doesn't want them in our country, to be honest." He then stated that "We're gonna go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage." This is deeply dehumanizing language and is particularly dangerous coming from a President.

With Trump, you never really know if he believes the things he says or whether he is just saying those things for a purpose. For her part, Ilhan Omar argued in the pages of the New York Times that "The president knows he is failing, and so he is reverting to what he knows best: trying to divert attention by stoking bigotry." As I've noted, spurring divisiveness has been Trump's go-to play. Whether it is rousing white New Yorkers against the Central Park Five, using Mexican immigrants as a punching bag when launching his first campaign for President, lying about Haitians, or now attacking Somalis, Trump's favorite ploy is to create an "us against them" narrative.

As is Trump's tendency, he has little regard for the truth and lies constantly. It is true that a number of Somalis were involved in multiple fraud cases in Minnesota. However, the number of individuals arrested is less than 100, and not all of them are Somali. Indeed, the ringleader of the entire free meals operation that was the first case to be exposed is a white woman. While 100 may seem like a lot of people, the Somali community in Minnesota numbers around 80,000. There is no rational reason to tarnish the entire community due to the misdeeds of this small number. The New York Times recently claimed that all the fraud cases in Minnesota may total $1 billion in taxpayers' money. Other observers have suggested that this overstates the real number, which is considerably smaller. Nevertheless, just before referring to Somalis as "garbage," Trump accused them of defrauding Minnesota of "billions" every year. That is a huge exaggeration. Moreover, Trump has claimed that some of the money was sent to Somalia to support a terrorist organization. This is an allegation that originated with right-wing Islamophobes and has not been substantiated.

ICE and Border Patrol recently launched efforts targeting Somalis in the Twin Cities. It is extraordinary that a government operation would specifically target the members of one ethnic community. This is an explicitly racist operation. Moreover, despite what Trump may have you believe, the results of the campaign against Somali immigrants will likely be more limited than expected. According to Ilhan Omar, over 90% of Minnesota Somalis are U.S. citizens. They are aware that even citizens will be targeted and are carrying their U.S. passports with them. As has happened in other cities in which large-scale immigration operations have been launched, the effect of the action will likely be to cause the community to rally around the immigrants. While many Americans are racist and support Trump's racist behavior, a great many more are appalled by it.

Trump has a lifetime of racist behavior. He has adopted the strategy of using minorities to create division and using division to benefit his own interests. Whether it is Black teens, Mexicans that Trump accuses of being rapists, Haitians, or, as is the case now, Somalis, Trump uses racism and xenophobia to motivate his followers. Now, however, Trump is able to support his racist tendencies with the power of government. That makes him even more dangerous. But, if Omar is correct that Trump is attempting to divert attention from his failures, he is likely to fail. No number of arrests of Somalis will change the prices that Americans are paying for groceries (an old-fashioned word according to Trump) and the ICE and Border Patrol operation itself is likely to be a failure. Trump's approval rating has recently hit an all-time low. Turning to racism is unlikely to save him this time.