Column
Trump’s Dog Whistle Presidency
Trump’s campaign knew what they were doing when they tweeted a Nazi symbol and scheduled a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth
On Thursday, two days before Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the president will reportedly give a speech on race, his campaign ran an ad on Facebook decrying “far left mobs,” and displaying an image once used to mark prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Business as usual for a president whose bigotry comes as easily as breathing.
Trump’s campaign responded to criticisms of the symbol — an upside-down red triangle — by claiming it was a common antifa logo (it is not). But debating the meaning behind the Trump administration’s many dog whistles — whether it’s the president calling Covid-19 the “Wuhan virus,” his anti-Semitic musings about George Soros, or his campaign’s use of imagery from white supremacist groups — is pointless. We know who Trump is.
Participating in an argument about semantics or symbols suggests that the president’s bigotry is up for debate. It’s not. Trump is profoundly, conspicuously, and proudly racist — we can take his words, and his campaign’s actions at face value.
It is not a coincidence that the president chose Tulsa — where white people…
