Trump Ramps Up the Racism and Sexism After Harris Makes History

Stefani Reynolds/ZUMA

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.One day after Joe Biden announced his decision to name Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, a history-making choice that saw the first Black woman and the first South Asian American woman to be nominated on a major party’s presidential ticket, President Trump is sticking to familiar terrain:

The “suburban housewife” will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge! @foxandfriends @MariaBartiromo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2020

Let’s unpack this one. Right off the bat, Trump ramped up his use of outdated, sexist labels in order to make a blatant appeal to white suburban women—who by the way, overwhelmingly disapprove of the president these days. Continuing to stoke false and racist fears that America’s suburbs will be destroyed by a Biden presidency, he then suggested that Cory (note the spelling) Booker, the Black senator from New Jersey, would lead an effort to restore an Obama-era fair-housing policy that the Trump administration ended last month. (As my colleague Aaron Wiener explained when Trump first brought the issue to the forefront last month, Biden has embraced much of Booker’s housing plan for his own platform.) All this, Trump claimed, laid the groundwork for a suburban “invasion.”
The tweet is a generous serving of the racism and sexism we’ve long seen from this president. On the heels of the groundbreaking Harris news, it’s all the more glaring.