Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 13, 2024.
I first saw Donald J. Trump in the late 1980s at the Trump Tower in New York City where he and boxing promoters Bob Arum and Don King introduced Kenyan boxer Robert Wangila Napunyi. I was there as the lawyer for Mr Napunyi, the first and only Kenyan to win a gold medal in the Olympics outside of athletics.
Regrettably, Mr Napunyi later succumbed to injuries sustained in a boxing match in Las Vegas. I’ve a vivid recollection of Mr Trump then as a bombastic, bloviating, and utterly egotistical man. If you had told him he would become US President I would’ve thought you were smoking something. Here we are – Mr Trump has nearly upended American democracy.
An insufferable narcissist, Mr Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He inherited millions from his father and became a checkered real estate mogul in New York. I have never seen, or read about, anyone like Mr Trump in America. Like Hitler, he’s a cult figure in the Republican Party and among many White Americans.
He has made racism fashionable in America again. I didn’t see it coming. Mr Trump had toyed with the idea of running for public office, but as Governor of New York, not US President. Then in June 2015, Mr Trump came down the golden escalator of Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Nothing has been the same since.
Miserably limited vocabulary
At the announcement, one lasting image remains. In a memorable speech, he anchored his campaign on race-baiting and the demonization of immigrants, especially Mexicans and Hispanics. He called them rapists, drug dealers, and every racist epithet under the sun. He said he would expel all of them if elected to protect America.
Those incendiary remarks, which haven’t been so publicly voiced by a candidate of a major party for President, quickly gained him a cult following among White Republicans and other closet racists who had long remained hidden. It was OK in America to openly vilify immigrants again in the vilest manner. Quickly, the nation’s political discourse become so toxic that it was traumatizing to just watch news about politics.
Then the next shocker. Mr Trump bit and chewed into his Republican opponents like a hot knife cutting against butter. He belittled and mocked each one of them into submission. He even laughed the favored Jeb Bush, the son and brother of the Bush political dynasty, off the Republican stage. He alone was left standing and got the Republican nomination for President.
Although Mr Trump is arguably an educated man – he went to the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school – he has a miserably limited vocabulary and speaks with a simpleton’s mind. He’s coarse, crude, and base. But this may be part of the magic of his success – most in his political base never went to college.
Let’s dig deeper. Who’s Mr Trump? His grandfather was an immigrant from Germany and his own mother was born in Scotland. Two of his three wives are themselves White immigrants from Eastern Europe. Clearly, Mr Trump is no stranger to immigrants, or their presence in his life.
Nativist and toxic politician
What Mr Trump finds utterly unacceptable are Black or Brown immigrants from Africa, Latin America, or Asia. Unrepentantly, he can’t stand Muslims and Muslim immigrants. He regards virtually all Muslims as terrorists. It’s not a stretch to conclude that apart from the Ku Klux Klan and its like-minded groups, Mr Trump is the most nativist and toxic politician in modern America. What’s so stunning is that he’s beaten down all other reasonable Republicans in the country.
Let’s be clear. Before Mr Trump took the cudgel to immigrants, he honed his racist skills against African Americans. Two examples, among a myriad, stand out. A substantial owner of apartment real estate in New York, Mr Trump was notorious for refusing to rent out apartments to African Americans. He was investigated and found culpable by the Justice Department.
The second example was even more tragic. When a White female jogger was attacked, raped, and killed, five Black and Hispanic teenagers – known as the Central Park Five – were arrested and convicted in spite of their protestations of innocence. Later, a serial rapist confessed to the attack and the murder. The innocent Central Park Five were exonerated and their convictions vacated more than a decade later.
Prior to the sentencing of the Central Park Five for crimes they didn’t commit, Mr Trump took out full-page ads in the New York Times calling for their conviction and public execution. To date, he has never apologized to them, or acknowledged that he was wrong. Two weeks ago, at the presidential debate with VP Kamala Harris – in which she smoked and pummeled him – Mr Trump blurted out baseless and racist claims that legal Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating pets in Springfield Ohio. He clearly isn’t fit to be President.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.
