Tuesday on MSNBC, contributor Eddie Glaude ranted that President Trump was appealing to racism and “whiteness” by talking about the migrant caravan as “invaders” this close to the midterms and feared that “white children” would learn to be racists from the President.
After Trump talked about challenging birthright citizenship with illegal immigrants’ children to Axios Monday, MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle lumped this recent statement in with his warnings about the migrant caravan, asking Glaude and second guest Evan Siegfried if immigration was really an issue that would motivate Republicans for the midterms.
Note, Ruhle NEVER challenged Glaude during his rant.
Glaude conceded, “probably,” before going on a race-baiting rant, even comparing the talk of immigration to two recent hate crimes:
GLAUDE: It means something. Citizenship in this country has always been tied to free white person since the naturalization act of 1790. When he invokes this question of immigration and you say it plays with the Republican base, it's all about a certain conception of whiteness. This idea of whiteness that has led to 11 people being dead in Pittsburgh --
RUHLE: Two people in a Kroger grocery store --
GLAUDE: So here we are after the carnage. And this man, this moral monster is playing to those base instincts. I don't want to play the political game with regards to that. I know what The 14th amendment was all about. What passed in 1868. It is part of the reconstruction amendments. Has everything to do with the abolishment of slavery. With making us have citizenship. It has everything to do with part of the second founding of the country. Donald Trump go read the second inaugural. Go look at what Lincoln said. So it may play politically and if it does it shows that the country is profoundly racist.
A little later on, Ruhle provoked Glaude again, bashing Republicans’ “strategy” of cracking down on illegal immigration as Glaude worried that white children would grow up to be hardened racists because of Trump’s rhetoric:
I'm thinking about what it means for children growing up, white children, growing up, hearing other human beings described as infestations. Carriers of disease. What will it do to their souls? You see? So there's the question of the politics of the matter. Right? At this point in time in the country, Stephanie, you have been talking with -- you wear a button that says "Love." You have been talking about decency. This is indecent. It is borderline -- not borderline, it is evil. It sets the stage for unimaginable cruelty. If we talk about this only in terms of the horse race, right, then he has done what he has succeeded to do.
Ruhle followed up by bashing Republicans, hoping that it would get liberal hispanics out to vote against them in one week. “Evan, are Republicans comfortable with this strategy? We've been talking for weeks about how Latinos haven't been motivated to vote. This might motivate them!” Ruhle gushed. Siegfried blamed Trump and the “rot of the Republican party” for the “rise of anti-Semitism” in the country, also linking it to his talk on immigration:
It's the moral rot that has infested the Republican party because of what Donald Trump has done. It's not just the fear of immigrants, it's also look at what happened with the Tree of Life Synagogue. In 2016, I started to see a great deal of anti-Semitic death threats and I never thought this country would be capable of that...I didn't understand it until Donald Trump entered the political spectrum.
Glaude went on to blast the “fear” of the “browning of America” is what really was motivating Republicans.
