In effort to woo women voters, Trump employs blatant racism

Here’s a quick follow-up of sorts to a post from last week, when I wrote about Donald Trump’s campaign relying on racist and xenophobic claims that resemble campaign materials from the early 20th century.

Trump gave us another example Sunday, when he reshared a social media post with footage of dark-skinned people walking in line. The accompanying text said: “If you’re a woman you can either vote for Trump or wait until one of these monsters goes after you or your daughter.”

Trump’s campaign is maniacally focused on anti-immigrant fearmongering, so, much like with that post, the message here seems clear enough, no? In essence: “Women, fear the dark-skinned people” — and not the old white men who want to wield control over your body (and your daughter’s) and keep you in abusive marriages.

This was straight-up “Birth of a Nation”-style racism being promoted by the standard-bearer of the Republican Party.

And though I don’t plan to report on every racist thing Trump does or says — in part because neither you nor I have the time — I do want to make three observations:

• First: The rank racism promoted in the Republican Party is remarkable. Trump and his associates regularly spew the sort of racism that got Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, castigated and ousted from Congress years ago.
• Second: The Trump-Vance campaign, quite clearly, is still lacking a coherent message to appeal to women. Asked recently by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham about his message to Black women, Trump gave an answer that was very telling in that it basically was “Beware the immigrants.” One could argue that’s his entire political platform in a nutshell, but to me, this despicable shared post, paired with Trump’s Ingraham interview and JD Vance’s apparent ability to offend women with each passing utterance, proves that Team Trump is bereft of any tactics but fear in their efforts to woo women voters.
• And lastly: I’ve become a bit torn in my belief about whether Truth Social is a boon for Trump or a boondoggle. On one hand, it seems like a huge waste of money and an embarrassing vanity project. On the other hand, Trump posts a lot of extreme content over there that goes largely unseen. So I’m going to do my best to be selective with you all, and share things he posts only when I feel I can use them to make broader points.