When assessing the fitness of a president, racism must be taken into account

Donald Trump’s comment on “black jobs” is a reminder of his long history of racism.

First, here are four new stories from Atlantic:

---

A History of Racism

It will take years, and probably a few history books, to fully deconstruct the CNN debate and its aftermath. People are (rightly) focused on President Joe Biden’s alarming performance, but that preoccupation has gotten in the way of a crucial analysis of the debate’s content. So let’s look at a short phrase that is both troubling and illuminating: “Black jobs.”

“The fact is, the biggest blow that Biden has dealt to black people is the millions of people he’s let in across the border,” Trump said in response to a question posed to Biden about black Americans being unhappy with him. “They’re taking jobs away from black people now. And it could be 18, 19, 20 million people. They’re taking jobs away from black people and Hispanics. And you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”

You may be wondering what exactly a “black job” is? Trump didn’t say. But the archaic implication that certain jobs are reserved for blacks or Hispanics certainly resonated with many Americans listening. (“That’s the most racist statement he’s made in three days,” Al Sharpton said in a post-debate interview.)

Even Trump’s claims about black unemployment and immigration statistics are false. In fact, unemployment has reached historically low levels among blacks under the Biden administration, and wage growth for black and Hispanic workers has increased significantly over the same period. Furthermore, there are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and no modern president has successfully addressed the complexities of the border.

Trump’s racism over the years has been well documented, and it has not abated during his presidency. He has attacked black politicians and athletes as unintelligent and “low IQ”; he has expressed a preference for immigrants from Norway over those from Haiti and African countries, which he has called “shithole countries.” Later, as former president, he used terms like “racist” and “animal” to describe black prosecutors who were building criminal and civil cases against him and his company.

Since leaving office, his intolerance, both overt and implicit, has only worsened. Just last month, Trump claimed that his support among blacks and Hispanics had “skyrocketed” thanks to his “incredible” mug shot, “the No. 1 mug shot of all time”—implying that blacks identified with his status as an accused felon. (This wasn’t the first time he’d boasted that his indictments had attracted black voters.)

He called Milwaukee, a majority-black and majority-Hispanic city that is hosting the Republican National Convention this month, a “horrible” city. His spokesman later said he was responding to a question about “rising crime” (though Milwaukee’s crime rates are down this year) and “voter fraud” (though investigators have found all of Trump’s claims of voter fraud to be unfounded). But that’s part of a larger pattern. He also claimed without evidence that election malfeasance is rampant in Philadelphia, where at least half the population is black or Hispanic.

The Trump effect is also visible in his wider entourage: His former lawyer Rudy Giuliani recently called Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “Fani the Whore” at a far-right Christian nationalist event, prompting raucous applause. And Trump created an environment in which nearly 200 House Republicans felt comfortable voting to restore a Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery that included bronze figures of what the cemetery calls “a slave woman depicted as a ‘Mammy,’ holding a white officer’s infant child, and a slave man following his owner to war.” (The vote failed, and the monument will remain in storage.)

There was also TV producer Bill Pruitt’s May 30 report in Slate from his time on the first season of The apprentice, that aired in 2004. It depicted Trump insulting a candidate during a conversation that Pruitt said was recorded. The group was discussing the merits of two finalists when someone said that one of them, Kwame Jackson, had overcome more obstacles than the other.

The Trump campaign denied that this ever happened. But as AtlanticMegan Garber recently wrote that Americans already know about Trump’s racist past: “Trump has treated racism as a campaign message and a marketing ploy. He keeps finding new ways to insist that some Americans are more American than others. Epithets, for him, are a way of life. What can words convey that his actions have not? What precisely remains to be proven?”

And so, bucking the pattern of recent weeks and decades, going back to a 1973 federal lawsuit accusing Trump, his father and their company of discriminating against prospective black apartment renters (they settled and did not admit guilt), here are “black jobs.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, one of four men of color being discussed as possible vice presidential candidates, tried to skirt those two words on CBS. He ended up saying that Trump was referring to “working-class jobs.” Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, former Trump housing secretary and fellow vice presidential contender, was more direct. Trump was talking about “people at the bottom of the economic ladder” who work “unskilled jobs,” he told CNN, adding that Trump “probably” could have phrased his meaning better.

No kidding. One striking response to Trump’s flippant stereotypes showed three smiling men in uniform. “A doctor. An astronaut. And a fighter pilot,” the X-rated post read. “Reporting live from our #blackjobs.” Many of us have noticed that Barack Obama’s “black job” was the presidency. And, since 2021, the vice presidency is also a “black job.”

As Trump tries to gain ground with black voters, did his “black jobs” comment hurt him? Perhaps: A CBS News/YouGov poll released after the debate found that while registered voters gave Trump the win overall (56% to Biden’s 16%), registered black voters said, 39% to 25%, that Biden outperformed Trump. In another poll released after the debate, by Data for Progress, that asked likely voters who they would choose if the election were held tomorrow, Biden beat Trump 67% to 23% among black voters, with 10% undecided. Still, that would be the largest share of support among black voters for a Republican in more than 60 years, as Stephanie McCrummen reported in Atlantic.

At a time when Americans are preoccupied with questions about the president’s fitness, it would be good for us to remember what the Trump presidency looked and sounded like — and who it excluded.

This is the white noise of the 2024 campaign, and sometimes the blaring horn. Trump’s goals are to win the White House, end federal prosecutions against him, and avoid prison. He can choose a vice president of color if he thinks it will help him. But that doesn’t mean that Trump and his MAGA movement have grown up, changed, or made peace with American pluralism and inclusion. That would be a desperate man’s political calculation, and I hope—just as desperately—that by now most voters are no longer fooled.

Related:

---

Today’s news

---

Dispatches

Discover all our newsletters here.

---

Evening reading

My life depends on playing chess 40 times a day

By Cory Leadbeater

Read the entire article.

More than Atlantic

---

Cultural break

Watch (or ignore). MaXXXine (which hits theaters Friday) pays homage to the horror films of yesteryear, writes David Sims. Is it enough?

Read. Paige McClanahan’s first book, The new touristargues that rather than abandoning tourism, we should simply do it better, writes Chelsea Leu.

Play our daily crossword game.

---

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you purchase a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for your support Atlantic.