Donald Trump is proving he’s racist and stupid with his latest post.

In a Truth Social post Thursday morning, Donald Trump appeared to suggest, again, that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris isn’t really Black, ramping up his identity-based attacks to the horror of those in his party who consider racism a losing electoral strategy.

Earlier in the week, many GOP strategists, including in the Trump camp, worried that attacks on Harris’s race and gender—which seemed all but inevitable considering Trump’s history of racism and misogyny—would pose a serious liability for the campaign. “We hope he doesn’t act like a crazy racist and sexist person, but we can’t control him,” a source close to the campaign told The Washington Post.

These hopes were quickly dashed in the course of Trump’s interview with the National Association of Black Journalists Wednesday afternoon, in which the candidate claimed that, for years, Vice President Kamala Harris “was Indian all the way, and then suddenly she made a turn and she became a Black person.”

  • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The base isn’t going to be put off by it, but that’s not who they’re worried about. Every election is divided by independent swing voters and yes, some of them do care.

    The 33% that constitutes Trump’s base probably likes him more after every racist outburst, but they alone don’t win national elections.

    • dactylotheca@suppo.fi
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      4 months ago

      I’ve seen a lot of people raise doubts about whether there really are significant amounts of swing voters this time 'round, and I’d sort of tend to agree – if not for any other reason than it seems bizarre that somebody could be vacillating between Trump and Harris

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        Totally, Trump’s not really trying to win any more voters, everyone has already made their decision. He’s mudding the waters and hoping he can discourage people from voting in general to hurt Harris.

        The only way he can win is if a majority of people don’t vote. If you don’t vote, it’s accepting a second Trump presidency.

        • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          The only way he can win is if a majority of people don’t vote. If you don’t vote, it’s accepting a second Trump presidency.

          If everyone voted, and especially if everyone under 40 voted, the Republican party would lose in a landslide. There’s a reason that the Republicans are so big on voter suppression.

      • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        There are enough swing voters to deliver a Democratic victory in 2012, Republican in 2016, Democratic in 2020, and either way in 2024.

        I agree with you that it seems ridiculous. The policies and personalities are completely different so it’s difficult to imagine people who can’t decide between the two.

        But I think you have a lot of people who are disaffected with politics in general, who think all politicians are the same, who probably don’t pay too much attention to the news, who make up this bloc. And they probably vote in a reactive way, if at all - a referendum on a bad economy or whatever news breaks through to them. Maybe it’s only 10% of voters, but that’s the margin that decides all these elections. And they are potentially swayed by a constant drumbeat of negative Trump news, especially that he now no longer faces an opponent with their own significant visible flaws.

      • Today@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I didn’t think there are undecideds, but there are fringe people on one side that he can lose and some on the other side who will secretly vote for him.