Trump’s State of the Union Speech Was a White Supremacist Vision of America

Under any other president, the end of that annual speech before a joint session of Congress is a clarion call to unity, a moment of national reassurance. {snip} What I heard was a white supremacist vision of America that alternately erased and whitewashed its history.

“This is the home of Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt, of many great generals including Washington, Pershing, Patton and MacArthur. This is the home of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong and so many more,” Trump said, tossing in Douglass and Tubman like a couple of Skittles in a bucket of milk.

“The American nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest and most determined men and women ever to walk on the face of the Earth,” Trump said. {snip}

“Our ancestors braved the unknown; tamed the wilderness; settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine; laid down the railroads, dug out the canals, raised up the skyscrapers,” Trump said. “And, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional republic ever to exist in all of human history, and we are making it greater than ever before.”