American politics took a turn for the worse in 2015 when Donald Trump’s announcement that he was running for president included a shot at Mexico for sending “rapists” to the U.S. The downward trajectory accelerated Wednesday at a campaign event in Greenville, North Carolina, when the president’s denunciation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somalia-born Minnesota Democrat, led the crowd to chant, “Send her back!” That was a raw, ugly — and yes, racist — sentiment echoing Trump’s Sunday tweet calling for Omar and three other minority woman House members — all U.S. citizens — to “go back home.”
Trump’s decision Thursday to disavow the chant was welcome, even if it was accompanied by the false claim that he tried to speak quickly to end the chant. It would have been far better for America if the president had disavowed it in real time instead of waiting to see the anguished, angry reaction it produced from Democrats and some, though not enough, Republicans. In 2008, when a Minnesota resident denounced Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as an untrustworthy “Arab” at a rally for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the Arizona senator instantly took the microphone from her and told her that wasn’t true.
It would also be far better for America if Trump’s repeated allusions to race didn’t always seem to have an element of “Can I get away with this or did I go too far?” It’s plain his election strategy still focuses on stoking the grievances of white Americans.
Trump’s defenders will no doubt continue to question his critics and note that Omar called him a “fascist” Thursday. Excessive rhetoric from the left will continue, too. But the line must be drawn at racism. If we as citizens don’t call it out, that says as much about us as about him. Trump said he “was not happy” with the loud chant he let abate. The next Trump rally bears watching, even by his critics.