WASHINGTON: Donald Trump is facing a backlash for challenging the race of US election rival Kamala Harris, but for those familiar with the Republican’s long history of inflammatory language.
Trump’s political career was forged in the cauldron of a 2010 “birther” conspiracy theory that sought to delegitimize then-President Barack Obama — who had a Kenyan father — by falsely claiming he was born abroad.
Those who say Trump is racist point to dozens of other controversies the property mogul has stirred up, from a 1970s lawsuit alleging discrimination against black tenants to his notorious pandering to white supremacist protesters in 2017.
Trump’s worst impulses resurfaced Wednesday with his outlandish claim that Harris — the first woman and non-white vice president — had recently “become black” for political convenience.
Like the estimated 34 million Americans in the nation’s fastest-growing demographic, Harris is mixed and consistently celebrates her black and South Asian identities.
The attack returned Trump to media attention that had shunned him since Harris’ game-changing entry into the White House race, but also drew attention to his extensive record of racial misdeeds.
“He’s screwed up the bed… The only question is whether he’s going to roll around in it or get up and change the sheets,” veteran strategist Scott Jennings, a former adviser to former President George W. Bush, told CNN.
The 78-year-old is desperate to woo black voters away from Harris – who has erased his poll lead since jumping into the race – but the invitation was already controversial.
Jennings suggested Trump should move on from the scandal, but the former president doubled down, sharing images of Harris celebrating her Indian heritage as some kind of ill-conceived “gotcha.”
Trump, who survived an assassination bid in July, was riding high and saw his campaign descend into chaos as the 59-year-old vice president replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for the Nov. 5 election.
Keith Gaddie, a professor of politics at Texas Christian University, said Trump’s motivation for his latest remarks was likely an urge to get back into the spotlight because “no one is talking about assassination attempts anymore.”
But he also sees significance in the context — an interview with three African-American interviewers in front of an audience of fellow black journalists — and believes the ex-president was playing “gladiator in the lion’s den” for his white base.
“He basically decided to fight his opponent by proxy, the battle with black women journalists,” Gaddie said.
Bill Kristol, chief of staff from 1989-93 to then-Vice President Dan Quayle, said Trump’s goal was likely to revive old characterizations of Harris as inauthentic after she veered to the political left during her 2020 primary campaign.
“Trump has no sense of decency. It would be nice if that disqualified political success,” Kristol wrote in a Thursday newsletter for the center-right publication The Bulwark.
“They’re igniting the passion of the base, and that’s important. But they’re also alienating many of the few swing voters who play a crucial role in deciding elections these days — as the results in 2018, 2020 and 2022 suggest.”
Political scientist Nicholas Creel of Georgia College and State University told AFP that the latest controversy reveals Trump’s lack of self-control and narcissism — “Trump is Trump” — rather than any underlying strategy.
Trump revives ‘birtherism’ as Harris gains in polls
