Trump…yet again…re-tweets from white supremacists. It just keeps happening “accidentally”
- Jun 27, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 29, 2024
June 28: On This Day In 2020
Of course it happened in Florida. Trump made a campaign stop in a retirement community, where residents throw golf cart parades to prove their adulation. On this visit, some folks who aren’t quite so enamored with Trump also showed up, and they pointed out that many Trump supporters were racists.
One Trump fan was videoed screaming “White Power! White Power!” at those who weren’t supporting Trump. That got posted on Twitter by someone with the handle “Fifty Shades of Whey.”
So OTDI 2020, Trump promptly defused the tense situation by encouraging his supporters to tone down their overt racism. Nah, just kidding. Actually, he reposted that White Power tweet for all the world to see. And, just as he had done with his white supremacist rioters in Charlottesville and Lansing, he praised “the great people” there.
(Is it just us, or is “great people” Trump’s way of categorizing supporters who are neo-Nazis, or who forcibly break into government capitols, or who proclaim the inferiority of non-white people?)
The reactions were swift and scalding. Tim Scott (R-SC), the only Black Republican in the Senate, called Trump’s tweet “indefensible.” Although Trump deleted his tweet, the White House press secretary reiterated that Trump “stand(s) with his supporters, who are oftentimes demonized.”
Was it an innocent mistake to retweet from racists? Well, it’s a “mistake” he makes far too often. For example, he caused an international incident by retweeting anti-Muslim videos from the UK. He retweeted a graphic with fictitious crime statistics demonizing Blacks. More than once he retweeted messages from the writer “@WhiteGenocideTM”. And in another case, he re-tweeted about an incident on a subway, blaming Black Lives Matter, when in fact the year-old video he included had nothing to do with BLM.
We have one question: How come Trump keeps “accidentally” re-tweeting from the accounts of white nationalist racists….but has never accidentally re-tweeted from the accounts of LBGTQIA+ activists, or BLM backers, or supporters of human rights?
By the way: Eight days after the Florida incident, Trump was right back at it with his racist tweets, attacking Black NASCAR driver Bubba Smith who had expressed concerns about displays of the Confederate flag at race courses.
Dive Deeper
Vox spells out Trump’s half-century history of bigotry here
The Villages-News has the overview of the contentious parade
ABC News has the Scott quote
The Daily Beast has more
Trump's subway retweet
“The president is a racist,” noted Keith Ellison, and re the UK videos
The New York Times detailed some other incidents too
Pic: Whoisjohngalt
Summary: Trump again demonstrates his racism