Once again, the now presumptive Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump, has issued a remark that’s so palpably racist that anyone with common sense should be questioning whether Trump is fit to lead our nation.
Specifically, Trump has claimed that Gonzalo Curiel, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the litigation against Trump University, is entangled in a conflict of interest because of his Mexican ethnic heritage. Judge Curiel was born on American soil, in Indiana, of parents who are legal immigrants from Mexico. This is to say that, whatever his ethnic roots, Curiel’s nationality and citizenship is American. Period.
It’s become plain that Trump so intensely seethes with ethnic biases that he’s unable to make the critical distinction between nationality and ethnic background. This disconnect in his synapses is especially scary because most Americans have “foreign” (for lack of a better term) ethnic heritages.
Me? My nationality is American. I was born here (Salem, Massachusetts) and have done military service for my country. But, ethnically, I’m pure Irish (Gaelic, actually), with grandparents who emigrated to the U.S. from the Republic of Ireland.
If Trump were to claim that I was unfit to perform this or that public office because it might put me into conflict of interest with an American who’s ethnically Anglo-Saxon, I’d ensure that he’d be fed some “grapes of wrath.”
In short, Trump has unabashedly demonstrated gender bias, ethnic bias and sectarian bias. I’d say that makes him a consummate bigot who, if he were to sit in the Oval Office, would find himself in multiple conflicts of interest, driven by his prejudices.
Trump will make America great? I say, balderdash!
Tom Wright
Aztec
