Trump Uses Timeworn Tactic to Stoke Suspicion About Harris

The New York Times ^ | Aug. 2, 2024, 1:45 p.m. ET | Adam Nagourney

[E. Pluribus Unum]

When former President Donald J. Trump challenged Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity at a public forum on Wednesday — and again on social media the next day — that was the message at the core of his remarks.

It is a tactic that has long been part of the underside of American politics: presenting an opponent as somehow “other” or “not one of us” — someone who cannot be trusted or truly known.

But while this has been a recurrent theme in American campaigns for at least a century, Mr. Trump has taken it to a new level, historians and analysts said. What has often been a subtext or a whisper campaign driven by surrogates is, in Mr. Trump’s hands, a central message of his campaign — projected on screens at a rally, promoted on social media and reinforced by his running mate.

Mr. Trump has personally led the effort, explicitly falsifying the biography of his opponent and invoking race and gender in ways no modern major-party leader has done before. Even as a noncandidate in the 2008 election, he deployed such tactics against Barack Obama, demanding to see Mr. Obama’s birth certificate and claiming that Mr. Obama — who went on to be the nation’s first Black president and was born in Hawaii — was not born in this country.

“Whenever the United States is poised to break a political glass ceiling, we see an intensification of othering in our politics,” said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. “What makes Trump a singularly poisonous political player is that the top of the ticket is overtly engaging in othering against his political opponent.”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Article presented under topic "humor" to grant it the respect it deserves.

[nwrep]

There we go. A wealth of interpretations.

[imabadboy99]

The NYT garbage paper is really flailing away at Trump lately. Just hoping to land a punch. Scumbags.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Here we go it just goes on and on and on and it’s a no-win for Trump. That’s why I say get as far away from this as possible. Just don’t go there in the first place.

[V_TWIN]

“an opponent as somehow “other” or “not one of us” — someone who cannot be trusted or truly known”

Trump has merely stated what SHE herself has said.

Can’t help it if she’s kamala chameleon

[Tell It Right]

How dare Trump use Kamala’s own words against her!! </sarc>

[Luke21]

This is a bunch of blah blah. CNN ran full stories on her Indian heritage with people sounding like the shopkeeper on the Simpson’s.

[Paladin2]

Harris does have a least a drop, doesn’t she?

[MikeSteelBe]

I think the Obamaniation’s birth certificate was a total fake. What did it for me was I heard the First Wookie in a speech refer to her husband’s “home country” of Kenya. No one says that unless they are talking about their birthplace.

[LegendHasIt]

In related news:

New York Times Uses Timeworn Tactic to Stoke Hatred Of Trump.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Attaboy genius. Go Give your momentum and issues advantage a blowjob

[Fledermaus]

That article could have been written bt a lot of weak FReepers around here.

[DouglasKC]

So we can pick whatever racial identity we want now? Good to know.

[DouglasKC]

It's all they got to run on. They were never going to have a white guy go against Trump. So the left was going to double down on Trump being a racist by contrasting him with their "person of color". This was their WHOLE campaign. And Trump tackled the issue from the get go early on to get it out of the way.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Youre right, I shouldn’t have said that I apologize.

[butterdezillion]

I’m so tired of news media spreading the lie that Obama was born in Hawaii. The hdoh on 3 separate occasions refused to provide a certified letter of verification to qualified requestor, and the only lawful reason for that is because there is no legally-valid birth certificate for him in Hawaii.

Iowa, Trump was once again right while the lying media was wrong

[eyeamok]

Until recently shw was celebrated as an Indian hooker

[Governor Dinwiddie]

The New York Times has no influence on anyone outside of New York City,
besides a few elite outposts in academia of nattering nabobs and pointy headed intellectuals.