Trump pulls U.S. into “third-world” politics
Victor Landa, NewsTaco
There was a salient moment in last night’s Presidential Debate that goes beyond the “who won” speculation. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced each other in verbal combat on live TV the way presidential candidates have since 1960. But there’s never been a moment in those 56 years like the one last night that was out of character for U.S. politics.
Non-Latino reporters and pundits have been making intermittent references to the moment throughout this morning’s day-after coverage, but for many Latino viewers and listeners it was an all too familiar red flag.
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception,” Trump said to Clinton.
Hillary’s response was “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” And that’s when Trump dropped his bomb.
“Because you’d be in jail,” he quipped.
American’s think of ourselves as politically evolved, we believe we’re a beacon of Democracy to the world, developed in a way other’s aren’t. Threats to jail political opponents are things relegated to third-world countries, they’re the stuff of dictatorial vengeance. They’re also the stuff of Donald Trump.
Trump’s words sounded scarily familiar to many immigrants – many came to this country fleeing places where such Trumpian threats are commonplace, where authoritarian regimes have no checks on their payback whims. For Latinos and other commutes of color Trump’s words set-off loud alarms. This is the same man who boasted of forcing a sitting president, a man of color, to show him his papers.
Whites don’t get it, not the way that non-whites do.
These aren’t words to be merely noted on cable TV news shows where expert panels are consistently white-heavy. Trump’s words sound like nationalism run amok in a threatening way, but maybe the best way to get the point across is to say that, if possible, Trumps numbers in communities of color will go down even more because of the threat – those are terms they understand.
Last night was a turning point in American politics in a way that U.S. Latinos know too well.
[Screenshot courtesy of C-SPAN]
