It is getting sillier and sillier. The GOP has stoked racial fears and prejudice for almost 60 years now, starting the year I took my little White self to the altar and married a Black woman (1964). I watched up close the corrosive effects of Republican slurs against minorities and the equation of poverty with minorities, a subtle way of getting poor Whites to vote Republican. The only thing about Trump is that his personality disorder makes it impossible for him to hide these dog whistles and the fact he doesn’t – what he calls “not being politically correct” – charges up his supporters who have longed to use those racial slurs to control non-Whites.
This goes back to identify politics, something the Right often accuses the Left of engaging in but the Right started in 1964 by appealing to White Southern segregationists under the dog whistle of states rights to give political science legitimacy to racism pure and simple.
Trump’s use of the sobriquet Pocahontas in reference to Elizabeth Warren is the exact same thing as using any slur and those who would dress it up by acting innocent are liars. They know very well that the use of that word is meant to diminish Warren. Unfortunately for Trump, Warren is twice the man he is.
Trump has diminished the GOP to the vanishing point, which is a shame since we do need a center-right party to balance the Democratic Party. BTW, here’s a parallel: the “Democrat Party” – notice how Republicans refuse to call Democrats by our real name? Same thing as Pocahontas.
I’m glad E. J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson can claim some Republicans they know are good people because if Republicans depended on me, I would have a hard time excusing their inexcusable behavior.