President Trump stunned the nation this afternoon when he literally tossed his notes out and launched into a dark and deeply disturbing screed against undocumented immigrants, forgetting that he was supposed to be promoting his tax bill and instead treating the audience to a lurid and grotesque description of the imaginary crimes that undocumented migrants commit once they arrive in the United States.
Trump: "This was going to be my remarks…but to hell with it"
*throws speech in the air* pic.twitter.com/jpQnuV4bQh
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) April 5, 2018
Fox News cut away from Trump's speech as he went on his familiar rant about how undocumented immigrants like to kill people with knives rather than guns because they are extra sadistic pic.twitter.com/bEsUzHDdje
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 5, 2018
The president’s racist rant is a demented old man’s paranoia fuelled and fanned by years of right-wing fearmongering and FOX News sensationalism – but instead of being shouted at a television in a nursing home, it’s being shouted on television with the entire nation watching.
This is not your ordinary conservative propaganda; this is racist demonization similar to what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews, or what the Hutus said about the Tutsis before the genocide in Rwanda. His fans, who have been trained their whole lives to dehumanize people of color by American society, will hear these words and see them as a call to action.
Racist attacks and hate crimes are the inevitable product of this kind of rhetoric. The fact that FOX News itself, which has been openly promoting white nationalist propaganda in their evening segments, cut away from this speech tells you all you need to know about the line the president just crossed.
