This was one of those weeks when you had to take the bait, even if you knew Trump was creating a controversy intentionally to troll you. The go-back-where-they-came-from tweets against American congresswomen, the send-her-back chant against Rep. Ilhan Omar — it was just too much. This kind of blatant racism can’t be treated as normal, even for a president whose political career began with the racism of the birther smear.
I’ll cover the various factual angles of that outrage in the weekly summary, but first I want to say a few words about our emotions: I think a lot of us, when we heard the chant, felt a sinking feeling, as if this moment were a long-suppressed nightmare breaking into reality: “This is how he wins,” we thought. “This is how the American experiment ends.”
It’s not. It’s frustrating that we’ll have to wait 16 months to see, but this is not a genius political move. It’s a one-trick pony doing his one trick. He tried it in 2018 — remember the “invasion” of the caravans? — and it didn’t work. I’ll talk that through in a fairly short post called “Don’t Panic”. It should be out before 10 EDT.
Before that, I want to toss out another short post, which is my response to the question Kirsten Gillibrand faced about white privilege. Gillibrand’s answer was widely lauded among people who already get the point she was making, and I don’t disagree with what she said. But I wonder if the white woman who asked the question — or the millions that I think she represents — really heard what Gillibrand said, or understood it well enough that they could repeat it to their friends. I’ll take my shot in “The Privilege of Being Normal”, which should be out shortly.
I’ll try to get the weekly summary out by 11.
The Weekly Sift 