In what may be the least shocking news of the year, Donald Trump promises more racial profiling.
Donald Trump said Sunday that although he hates the idea of racial profiling, it might just be time to start implementing it anyway.
We hates it. We hates it forever. But hey, seems like a good idea, so sure, why not?
“You know, I hate the concept of profiling,” he added. “But we have to start using common sense and we have to use, you know, we have to use our heads. We really have to look at profiling. We have to look at it seriously. And other countries do it, and it’s not the worst thing to do. I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to use common sense. We’re not using common sense.”
This paragraph could serve all on it’s own as a guide to Talking Like Trump. Start with a quick statement of something terrible that no person in their right mind would agree with. Then follow up with: It’s just common sense, other people do it, it’s not that bad, it would be wrong not to do it.
Pretty much anything will fit in that first sentence. “You know, I hate the fiery sacrifice of children to Baal, but we need to use our heads. Apply some common sense. They do it in Carthage. There are worse things. Not sacrificing children shows we’re not using common sense.”
And of course Trump favors racial profiling. He hasn’t contracted for 100 million reference-grade brown paper bags—yet. But without some sort of profiling, how can we possibly know who goes on which side of the wall?
Just as a reminder:
In 2003, President George W. Bush ordered a federal ban on racial profiling — although he made exceptions for terrorism investigations. His guidelines said federal agents would still be allowed to use race and ethnicity to “identify terrorist threats and stop potential catastrophic attacks.” Civil rights groups said the loophole made his ban effectively meaningless.
Republicans have spent the Obama years opening the door to crazy and cheering on exactly the sort of racial and religious divisiveness that ushered in the Trump campaign. Even if Trump wasn’t their candidate, the racial profiling that even George W. Bush once felt compelled to end would be championed by any GOP nominee in 2016.
Racism isn’t a feature unique to Trump. It’s baked into the modern Republican Party.