Okay, so we’re doing this now. Trump doubled down on his racist rhetoric, and now his allies and surrogates are lining up behind it. Alright, old man Trump, we’ll play this game, but understand we know which game were actually playing.
Trump’s campaign is trying to change the narrative of the race to anything else. The fact he’s being openly racist is infuriating to anyone who happens to reside in 2024, but that is very much the point. Team Trump is trying to do two things: change the media coverage from “Harris piles up W’s against weird old Trump” to something else, and to infuriate democrats into giving him something he can use. We simply have to remember that when hitting back on this issue.
Re-framing his attack is key here, because we need to keep him in the ‘weird’ box in people’s minds. Luckily, this is pretty easy because of the construction of the racist tirade itself. This ‘idea’ of his was not a thing until yesterday. Everything he pushed to back it up was made up in his brain yesterday afternoon on that stage. Every news media site shot it down, some of them pretty aggressively. It’s a fairly simple counter at this point.
First, any responses should highlight the fact that this was a completely random statement. “Well, looks like crazy grandpa Don had another random thought that we now all have to deal with” should be a subtext in any response. It should be stressed over and over that in addition to being not true, its not even something that existed before Don excreted the idea yesterday. “It’s such a weird/odd/crazy thing to think.” is a line that should be repeated. Tie it into other sudden outbursts of stupidity he’s had (inject bleach, anyone?) and tie it into the point that Trump is not in touch with reality.
Second, make it radioactively ‘weird’. Those trump puppets that try to support it or riff on it and make jokes about it should be called out, but from a direction they aren’t expecting. That direction should be how they’re all now suddenly having this same thought despite the fact no one was saying it before Wednesday. Really highlight that in addition to being racist, its just something one guy started saying and now they’re really trying to make it a thing because he refused to admit he’s lying. Drive a tourist bus full of any press that will listen up to this live demonstration of reactive group think and covering for a man who is applying to be the most responsible man in the world. Make sure any who parrot the line get exposed as quislings and yes-men. If they want to go to bat for Trump, make sure they know they’re going to be playing for Team Weird.
As for the racism present, I’ll leave that part of the response to the people who must deal with this type of horrible crap over and over again in their lives. I haven’t had that experience, but I cannot get over the idea that someone can go their whole life in a society that puts additional obstacles in the way of that person’s success just because of their race, but then turn around and claim they aren’t that race when they are being celebrated for their achievements in overcoming those obstacles.
