The real reason Donald Trump is doubling down on his racist hate speech

| 9:40 pm EDT July 18, 2019
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Donald Trump’s racist rant may have been effective in uniting the liberal and moderate wings of the Democratic Party together against him, while exposing the Republican Party for what it is. After an initial bout of silence, a small number of House Republicans condemned the racist tweets for what they were, while many of them, egged on further by right-wing pundits, publicly defended Trump – even if it meant having an embarrassing meltdown on the House floor.

However, as a new Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates, the incident largely made Trump more popular among Republicans, leading high ranking Republicans to push Donald Trump’s blatant racism as a re-election strategy. I’m not necessarily saying that this plan won’t fall flat on its face, and do the party some considerable damage for years to come, but it has given the GOP one thing: the opportunity to pull off the despicable acts that tend to be why they’re so despised in the first place while facing little retribution.

Take for example, Rand Paul killing a bill for the 9/11 victim’s compensation fund – a bill that drew significant media attention just a few short weeks ago when comedian Jon Stewart publicly testified to Congress in defense of the bill. While Kirsten Gillibrand hoped to push the bill unanimously through the Senate without a vote, Paul objected to the motion – and he did it without even giving any mention to the tragedy at all – simply saying that the program would add needlessly to the debt, which has increased in part because of the massive tax cut that Paul and fellow Republicans awarded to their wealthy donors.

In short, Paul is no longer even pretending to be a patriot – he’s making it clear that this is all about greed. While the Republicans may be desperate and stooping to new lows as they struggle to keep their power amidst an increasingly shrinking base, bear in mind that they are more dangerous than ever, hiding themselves behind each of Donald Trump’s controversies. It is imperative that we work to remove as many of them from office as possible – and soon.