Trump hails ‘righteous cause of American self-government’
President Donald Trump on Tuesday marked the 400th anniversary of American democracy and its gift “of the country we love,” but his celebration of what began as an experiment in selfgovernment was boycotted by black Virginia lawmakers incensed by Trump’s continued disparagement of a veteran black congressman and the majority-black district he represents.
The uplifting rhetoric from Trump marking 400 years of representative government contrasted sharply with his stream of attacks against U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, including before and after the event.
Trump said in remarks to Virginia’s General Assembly that the United States has had many achievements in its history, but “none exceeds the triumph that we are here to celebrate today.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us a state we love — in a very true sense it gave us the country we love, the United States of America,” he said.
The General Assembly, considered the oldest continuously operating legislative body in North America, grew out of a gathering that convened in July 1619.
But as Trump addressed state lawmakers in a tent on the lawn of a history museum near the site of the original Jamestown settlement colony, members of Virginia’s legislative black caucus held an emotional ceremony about 60 miles away in Richmond, at the site of a once notorious slave jail, where they took turns condemning the president.
Del. Delores McQuinn, who refused to say Trump’s name and instead called him “the tenant in the White House,” choked back tears as she said his critiques of minority members of Congress were aimed at “every person of color in the United States of America.” She urged the crowd to “reclaim the soul and fabric of this country.”
Trump said as he departed the White House that lawmakers participating in the previously announced boycott were going “against their own people.”
The Republican president claimed African Americans “love the job” he’s doing and are “happy as hell” with his criticisms of Cummings and his majorityblack Baltimore-area district.
The attacks on Cummings closely followed the president’s criticism earlier this month of four progressive Democratic female members of Congress.
The president’s unsubstantiated claim that African Americans are happy with him contradicts polling showing that blacks continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessment of his performance. According to Gallup polling, approval of Trump among black Americans has hovered around 1 in 10 over the course of his presidency, with 8% approving in June.
As Trump spoke at Jamestown, where the first enslaved black people arrived in America, a congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Door of No Return in Ghana, the departure point for millions of Africans bound for the Americas and sold into slavery.