[Content Note: White supremacy; nativism; misogyny.]
Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted this racist shit about Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts:
So interesting to see "Progressive" Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......As many people have already noted, all four of the congresswomen targeted by Trump are U.S. citizens, so this is just more of the nativist birther shit on which he's made his political name, starting with his birther campaign against President Barack Obama.
....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....
....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
I'll come back to that, but I also want to note very clearly that accusing sitting members of Congress of being uppity for having ideas about "how our government is to be run" shows, yet again, Trump's hostility to the most basic notion of the separation of powers. The president doesn't unilaterally run the U.S. government. Congress is a coequal branch which has as much authority over "how our government is to be run" as the executive branch.
Naturally, Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, and Presley had some thoughts for the president.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: "Mr. President, the country I 'come from,' & the country we all swear to, is the United States. ...You are angry because you can't conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder. You won't accept a nation that sees healthcare as a right or education as a #1 priority, especially where we're the ones fighting for it. Yet here we are. But you know what's the rub of it all, Mr. President? On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don't fear you, either."
Tlaib tweeted: "Yo @realDonaldTrump, I am fighting corruption in OUR country. I do it every day when I hold your admin accountable as a U.S. Congresswoman. Detroit taught me how to fight for the communities you continue to degrade & attack. Keep talking, you'll be out of the WH soon. #TickTock"
Omar tweeted: "As Members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States. Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen. You are stoking white nationalism because you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda."
Pressley, quoting Trump's words, tweeted: "THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy looks like. And we're not going anywhere. Except back to DC to fight for the families you marginalize and vilify everyday."
And of course they got backup from the People's President:
They're from America, and you're right about one thing: Currently their government is a complete and total catastrophe. https://t.co/NvsnFSN8mb
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 14, 2019
One thing I want to emphasize, again, is that one of the primary reasons Trump currently occupies the White House — and has the attendant platform from which to disgorge this despicable trash — is that lots and lots and lots of people who should have known better treated him like an entertaining joke through most of his candidacy, despite the fact that he launched his political career with a birther campaign and, long before that, was a public racist who had been sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination and purchased newspaper ads calling for the death of the Central Park Five.
I'm old enough to remember when people who urgently warned that Trump was a dangerous authoritarian racist and misogynist were told to stop being such killjoys and ruining everyone's fun making fun of the silly man with the weird hair.
And the purpose of saying that, once more, at this particular moment is that it's still happening. Even now, even as the sitting president goes after women of color serving in the U.S. congress, engaging in rank nativism and racism and misogyny, asserting his authoritarianism as he demeans them as human beings and demeans the role of U.S. Representatives in federal governance, there are still people who have nothing but jokes.
We need more than fucking jokes. It is long past time to treat Donald Trump with the gravity his bigotry and tyranny deserve.
