President Biden has “become like a Palestinian.” Former President Trump's comment at Thursday's debate in Atlanta was intended as an insult directed at his opponent's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Despite the implicit bigotry in the comment, Trump's defamation of an entire people in the form of a crude coup barely made the news.
There is plenty of analysis to emerge from the 90-minute live debate — Biden’s terrible performance, Trump’s fount of lies — but what I find most heartbreaking is the silent acceptance of casual racism as part of our political discourse.
The former president's bigoted rhetoric on stage last night doesn't even qualify as a minor talking point in today's discussions on CNN's broadcast.
When Trump stepped off the escalator and onto the campaign stage in 2015, numerous headlines and stories were generated in response to his racist comments about Mexican “rapists” and a “total and complete blockade of Muslims entering the United States.” Joined”.
Now, during one of the most watched television events of the year, such ugliness has barely caused an impact.
There is much more at stake now than there was nine years ago, so we are directing our energies elsewhere. This election is about defending democracy and defeating fascism. But if we are willing to accept derogatory comments about race, faith or people as part of a campaign to win votes, we have given up.
During the debate, Trump claimed that Biden’s failed immigration policy resulted in millions of dangerous immigrants taking “black jobs.” And if that wasn’t xenophobic enough, Trump expanded his fear-mongering to include the loss of “Hispanic jobs” as well.
What exactly is a black or Hispanic job? It's hard to say because no one on the debate stage or behind the moderator's desk bothered to ask. Co-hosts Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, by contrast, let the surprising racist comments go unnoticed, as if racial stereotypes were protected by CNN's no-real-time fact-checking debate rules.
To be fair, the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign was anything but a normal debate.
Biden seemed frail and bewildered. Trump was unusually controlled. And CNN served as a staging company rather than a news outlet. Post-debate discussions on multiple platforms have devoted themselves to deconstructing the scene (the incumbent's poor performance, his opponent's avalanche of lies) but have largely overlooked the ugly exploitation of race and bigotry in its broader analysis of the event.
In short, there has been little introspection as to how such blatantly discriminatory statements could have gone unchallenged.
The CNN broadcast revealed a sad truth about American politics in 2024: The xenophobic scaremongering that was once relegated to the far-right fringe is now an acceptable starting point for mainstream dialogue about American politics and presidencies.
The confusion between Palestinians and the dark, evil side of a conflict between good and evil is nothing new, especially in the MAGA universe. Sadly, it is no surprise that Trump’s comment about Palestinians is seen as a bizarre and somewhat humorous moment rather than a crude disparagement of an entire people.
Insults and disparaging statements against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims remain an acceptable form of intolerance and hatred, even in these supposedly “conscious” times. I had hoped that this dynamic might change in my lifetime, but the implicit connections that the media continues to make between Palestinians and Hamas, Muslims and terrorism, Arabs and strange otherness, tell me that I should not remain hopeful.
As for black and Hispanic jobs, Thursday's debate was further proof that we are getting used to racism on the right. The mainstream media, even left-leaning ones, is so desensitized by MAGA's repurposing of archaic stereotypes that they barely reacted to the association of black and brown communities with crime, low-paying jobs, poverty, etc. .
Hateful rhetoric has to be particularly egregious to provoke a protest, and that's a sign that intolerance is winning.
Pushing back on Trump’s demeaning comments should have been Biden’s job on that debate stage, and he failed. CNN and the rest of the media also failed to highlight the danger of normalizing racism for votes.
If this approach wins the White House, we all lose.
