Trump ‘spurs on haters’
– Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump on Thursday of fuelling America’s “radical fringe” with racist rhetoric, even as her Republican rival sought to soften his image with an appeal to minorities.
Clinton needs to retain support from black and Latino voters to win the November 8 election, the same coalition that helped propel Democrat Barack Obama to the White House in 2008. Trump, whose support comes mainly from whites, is unlikely to be victorious unless he can cut into that support.
“Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia,” Clinton said in a scathing speech in Nevada. “He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties.
“This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump,” Clinton said, referring to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and championed the 13th Amendment to the US constitution during the Civil War that led to the abolition of slavery in 1865.
Trump, who trails Clinton in national opinion polls, has polled poorly with minorities and has been criticised for his proposals on immigration, which include deporting millions of undocumented foreigners, building a wall along the Mexican border, and suspending Muslim immigration to shore up national security. He described some Mexican immigrants as “criminals and rapists” in a 2015 speech launching his candidacy, and more recently questioned the impartiality of an American-born judge of Mexican heritage.
On Thursday, Trump said Clinton and her party had let black Americans down with failed economic policies. “When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument: You’re racist, you’re racist, you’re racist,” Trump said in New Hampshire.
He said Clinton’s opposition to charter schools and vouchers locked minority students in failing jobs, that her tax policies would hurt black-owned businesses and that she would allow immigrants to take jobs from minorities. –