A Kansas county commissioner referred to the “master race” as he addressed a black city planner presenting a land use analysis to county officials at a board meeting, the Kansas City Times reports.
Said Commissioner Louis Klemp: “I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you, because, we’re part of the master race.”
As he brought his fingers to his own teeth, he added: “You know you got a gap in your teeth, you’re the masters, don’t ever forget that.”
“Hate crimes in America rose 17% last year, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased, according to newly released FBI data that showed an even larger increase in anti-Semitic attacks,” the Washington Post reports.
“The sharp increase in hate crimes in 2017 came even as overall violent crime in America fell slightly, by 0.2%, after increases in 2015 and 2016.”
Washington Post: “By running so overtly on racially tinged messages, the GOP is putting that explosive form of politics on the ballot. If Republicans maintain control of the House, the notion of running a campaign built on blunt, race-based attacks on immigrants and minorities will have been validated. A loss, on the other hand, might prompt a number of Republicans to call for a rethinking of the party’s direction — but that would collide with a sitting president who, if anything, relishes over-the-edge rhetoric.”
Max Boot: “President Trump’s more sophisticated supporters in places such as Washington and New York claim that his presidency is a raging success because he has appointed conservative judges, cut taxes and turbocharged the economy. Trump himself evidently disagrees, because he is not running the midterm campaign based on his supposed achievements. Instead, Trump and his fellow Republicans are closing the election with the most naked appeal to racial prejudice since the dark days of Jim Crow when Democrats in the South would compete to display their fervor for segregation…”
“It is not shocking that Trump would stoop so low. With him, there is no bottom. What is shocking, if no longer entirely surprising, is that the Republican Party would so readily follow him into the gutter. The prominent Republicans denouncing his hate-mongering are mostly those such as Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ.), Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Gov. John Kasich (R) who are not seeking reelection. The rest of the GOP is complicit in this disgraceful demagoguery. Republicans who do not denounce Trump’s racist tactics — and even imitate them — will never escape the stench of this year’s campaign as long as they live.”
“President Trump, joined by many Republican candidates, is dramatically escalating his efforts to take advantage of racial divisions and cultural fears in the final days of the midterm campaign, part of an overt attempt to rally white supporters to the polls and preserve the GOP’s congressional majorities,” the Washington Post reports.
“On Thursday, Trump ratcheted up the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has been the centerpiece of his midterm push by portraying a slow-moving migrant caravan, consisting mostly of families traveling on foot through Mexico, as a dangerous ‘invasion’ and suggesting that if any migrants throw rocks they could be shot by the troops that he has deployed at the border. The president also vowed to take action next week to construct ‘massive tent cities’ aimed at holding migrants indefinitely and making it more difficult for them to remain in the country.”
“What I can tell you is in 2016 we saw a 34 percent increase in acts of harassment, vandalism and violence against the Jewish community. But last year, a 57 percent increase, the single largest surge that we’ve ever seen in anti-Semitic acts in the United States.”
— Anti Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, on This Week.
Associated Press: “The final stretch of the midterm campaign is increasingly dominated by debate over one of the most sensitive issues in American culture: race.”
“From New York to Florida, dog-whistle politics are showing up in ads and attacks from outside groups and, in some cases, GOP candidates. It’s playing out against the backdrop of President Donald Trump, who has tapped into racial anxiety with warnings of rampant violence in urban areas, voter fraud, a caravan of migrants and unknown ‘Middle Easterners’ threatening the U.S. southern border.”
“Democrats argue the GOP is using racially charged appeals to boost turnout among white voters.”
“I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”
— Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum (D), quoted by the HuffPost, on challenger Ron DeSantis (R).
White nationalist leader Richard Spencer’s wife, Nina Koupriianova, accuses him in divorce filings of being “physically, emotionally, verbally and financially abusive,” BuzzFeed News reports.
She claims she was “being hit, being grabbed, being dragged around by her hair, being held down in a manner causing bruising, and being prevented from calling for help.”
“Megyn Kelly apologized to NBC colleagues on Tuesday after wondering aloud on her morning show why it was inappropriate for white people to dress up in blackface for Halloween,” the New York Times reports.
Said Kelly: “You do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was O.K., as long as you were dressing up as a character.”
“Her comments set social media aflame, and Ms. Kelly was one of the top trending topics on Twitter for much of the day.”
“Kiah Morris, the only African-American woman in the Vermont House of Representatives, announced her resignation, a month after she ended her re-election bid because of what she described as a yearslong campaign of racially motivated harassment and threats,” the New York Times reports.
As Morris told the Washington Post: “The sacrifices were becoming too great.”
Eric Blankenstein, a senior Trump appointee responsible for enforcing laws against financial discrimination, once questioned in blog posts written under a pen name if using the n-word was inherently racist and claimed that the great majority of hate crimes were hoaxes, the Washington Post reports.
Washington Post: “Seizing on the fact that the 24-year-old suspect police arrested, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, is a Mexican national who authorities said was in the country illegally, many Republicans, from President Trump on down, used the death to advocate for harsher immigration laws.”
“But Tibbetts family members have struck a different note, even in the emotionally tense days following the confirmation of her death last week, although they have not directly rebuked the president. During the eulogy her father, Rob Tibbetts, gave during her funeral Sunday, he highlighted his positive feelings for the local Hispanic community.”
Said Tibbetts: “The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans.”
He even noted that during the nearly six weeks he spent in Iowa while authorities searched for his daughter, he ate at a number of Mexican restaurants: “As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food.”
Georgia state Senator Michael Williams (R) told CNN that while he would personally disapprove of President Trump using the N-word, the president should not be “berated” if he said it long ago.
Said Williams: “It would matter to me as an individual. It would not necessarily matter to me as the person that is running our country. He has his personal beliefs, his personal ideas. I truly believe he is able to separate those from how he is running the country.”
He added: “I don’t have a problem with Donald Trump having used it in the past as my president.”
Zach Beauchamp: “I reported from the ‘Unite the Right 2’ rally in Washington on Sunday. It was a dreary failure that attracted around 30 people in total and literally ended before it was supposed to start…”
“But as pathetic as of all that was, none of it was quite as hilariously humiliating to the alt-right as the video below — in which the rally’s organizer, Jason Kessler, is yelled at by his father to get out of his parents’ room in the middle of a live stream with a fellow alt-righter.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that she “can’t guarantee” that President Trump has never used the “N-word,” but said that she has never heard him say it, ABC News reports.
Adam Serwer: “That’s one of the stranger paradoxes of this political era: Trump’s political opponents know who he is. His aides know who he is. Americans don’t need a tape to know who Trump is, or what he represents. He’s already shown who he is. He shows it every day.”
“The only people still laboring under the delusion that Trump lacks the animus to use a racial epithet are some of the people who voted for him. It would be naive to think that a mere recording of him using it would alter that.”
A different take, for members: Why the ‘Apprentice’ Tapes Would Be a Big Deal
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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