Donald Trump is running the most racist presidential campaign in recent memory, which is the kind of thing that may work for you in a Republican primary, but eventually catches up with you in a general election. That catching-up process got into gear during Monday night's debate, thanks both to Trump’s flailing answers to moderator Lester Holt’s questions—and to Hillary Clinton bringing it.
Trump again tried to claim that Clinton was the original birther and that he, Donald, had done President Obama a favor by successfully demanding his birth certificate. Literally. “I think I did a great job and a great service not only for the country, but even for the president, in getting him to produce his birth certificate.” In response, Clinton called it what it was: “the whole racist birther lie.”
But it can't be dismissed that easily. He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted, he persisted year after year, because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring into his fold, apparently believed it or wanted to believe it.
Birtherism isn’t some isolated blip of racism in the life of Donald Trump, either, and Clinton wasn’t going to let the audience forget that:
But, remember, Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans, and he made sure that the people who worked for him understood that was the policy. He actually was sued twice by the Justice Department.
Trump’s response on that front was … about as convincing as his birther answers:
Now, as far as the lawsuit, yes, when I was very young, I went into my father's company, had a real estate company in Brooklyn and Queens, and we, along with many, many other companies throughout the country -- it was a federal lawsuit -- were sued. We settled the suit with zero -- with no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do.
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“No admission of guilt.” Gosh, you’re totally vindicated if you settled with no admission of guilt! But wait, there’s more. Trump demanded credit for being forward-thinking and non-racist because he did not discriminate against any racial or ethnic groups in allowing super rich people to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Mar-a-Lago memberships. Because “It is the 1980s and I will take your money even if you’re black or Jewish” is racial hero stuff right there.
Trump got to this stage by stoking white people’s racial resentments and outright racism, by insisting, as Clinton put it, “on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen.” He can’t escape it that easily, “no admission of guilt” notwithstanding.