Trump’s Insult Campaign
Terry H. Schwadron
Aug. 2, 2024
Just this week Donald Trump used his platforms to insult Jews who disagree with him about the Middle East and Catholics who might question anti-abortion laws, and he told a Christian evangelical group that they would not “have to vote again” after supporting his election.
Then came his appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists where Trump, apparently surprised by “nasty” questions, derided opponent Kamala Harris’ race, asserting that only lately had she come to see herself as Black rather than of Indian descent.
The Trump campaign blather is getting press because his speech is offensive and insulting, as well as incorrect on all these counts — and just as Harris is moving up in national election polling. Harris didn’t choose her parents, and she wasn’t taunted and bused to schools because she had an Indian mother. She attended an historically Black college, joined a Black sorority, and has held multiple public positions after elections as a Black candidate.
So the criticism of Trump as a coarse boor is valid, despite attempts by various Republican lawmakers to try to bail out his campaign-speech canoe.
The bigger question is this: What was he talking about? Set the insults aside, why does Trump-speak require free translation after every public appearance these days?
The don-t-have-to-vote declaration set off a public mind-reading exercise to guess whether Trump was offering himself as president-for-life or an agenda that would transform America into a white-dominated, Christian nation with evangelical values stitched into its laws and institutions. The offensive insults to Harris’ racial self-description seemed almost less weird than trying to understand what any such late conversion of identity by Harris is supposed to mean for public policy choices.
Guessing at Meaning
All these remarks only resulted in bad conclusions, but we shouldn’t have to guess at the intended meanings of someone who has been president already.
Is Trump this confusing, this insulting when he talks to other national leaders? Is he losing yet more control over his already loose language or is he just ignoring his best advisors on spawning unforced campaign errors? Isn’t it exactly this sort of gap between brain and mouth that raised the political pressure for Joe Biden to take himself out of the presidential race altogether?
Of course, there is ample evidence in Trump’s history of insulting and racially tinged language and behaviors, going back to days in which he and his father faced racial discrimination allegations in apartment rentals in New York, his ill-formed attacks on the Central Park five, his leadership of birther conspiracies against Barack Obama, among others. Trump’s misogynistic public sparring with assertive women, whether in politics or journalism, is well known.
And yet, for Trump to choose to insult Harris for identifying as Black when our political environment reacts so awfully predictably with harassment exactly because she is Black is a head-scratcher. To do so in a room filled with Black journalists is even more questionable. What did he think he was doing? How would this possibly help his campaign? What did Trump want you and me to think about him or Harris or the quality of personal attacks based on race and identity or even about who is an American in these pluralistic times?
The incident seems at once too petty to dwell on, which is why Harris responded cooly by saying America deserves better campaign behavior, and too important to ignore.
Trump hugs the flag, pledges allegiance to his America, and regularly insults actual Americans.
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