Trump defends Confederate flag in latest appeal to white voters
U.S. President Donald Trump mounted an explicit defence of the Confederate flag Monday, suggesting that NASCAR had made a mistake in banning it from its auto racing events, while falsely accusing a top Black driver, Bubba Wallace, of perpetrating a hoax involving a noose found in his garage.
Trump’s reference to the Confederate flag, and its role in a sport whose mostly white fans Trump remains popular with, was the latest remark by the president as he tries to rally his culturally conservative base.
While NASCAR and other organizations have moved to retire symbols of the Confederacy, and lawmakers in Mississippi voted to bring down the state flag featuring the Confederate emblem, Trump has increasingly used racist language and references to portray himself as a protector of the history of the American South. He has called the phrase “Black Lives Matter” a “symbol of hate,” and he has repeatedly tried to depict pockets of violence during protests against entrenched racism as representative of the protest movement as a whole.
Trump delivered official speeches over the weekend that emphasized defending American historical figures such as George Washington and some abolitionists, though he avoided explicit references to totems of the Confederacy.
“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!” Trump posted on Twitter on Monday.
Later in the day, Trump added another inflammatory tweet, weighing in on recent announcements by the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians that the teams would review their names.
“They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct,” Trump tweeted.
He added a jab at a favourite target, Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has apologized for her past claims of Native ancestry. “Indians, like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now.”
Eleven minutes later, Trump again referred to the coronavirus as the “China Virus,” a phrase that critics say is racist, xenophobic and harmful to Asian-Americans.