is trump a racist?

it would seem that way, yes.

but, guess what?

hillary clinton is a racist.
george w. bush is a racist.
bill clinton is a racist.
george bush was a racist.
ronald reagan was a racist.
jimmy carter may have been too smart to actually be a racist, but he didn't transform the office in any meaningful way.
but, gerald ford was a racist.
and richard nixon was certainly a racist. massively.
and, lbj was a racist,
and, jfk was a racist.
and, eisenhower was a racist - although maybe less so than some of these other guys.
and truman was a racist.
and fdr was a racist....

i only skipped one of them. and, while i'm not going to argue that barack obama was a racist, i will point out that a number of his policies were, in actuality, actually also kind of racist. he certainly didn't undo anything, anyways.

so, the thing that's weird about this is that the situation is being presented as though it's novel: that donald trump is a racist president, and that's something that's unusual, or out of the ordinary, rather than being the status quo for the last two hundred odd years.

how about this: the office of the president of the united states is actually a racist institution, and what we learned recently is that it's going to take a lot more than electing a half-black person to change or fix that.

so, i'm going to make a not so bold prediction: the next president of the united states will either be a racist, or will carry forward a set of explicitly racist policies.