Donald Trump loses white supporter after his racist attack on black NFL star Marshawn Lynch
Donald Trump has consistently launched racist attacks on black public figures in an effort to rally what’s left of his own support base, which is nearly all white and largely racist. But it appears he may have finally taken things too far, even for at least one member of his own base, after he attacked Oakland Raiders star Marshawn Lynch on Monday. In fact one of Trump’s own white supporters lashed out at him for it.
On Monday morning, Trump tweeted “Marshawn Lynch of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders stands for the Mexican Anthem and sits down to boos for our National Anthem. Great disrespect! Next time NFL should suspend him for remainder of season. Attendance and ratings way down.” That tweet didn’t sit well with Linda Del Rio, the wife of Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio. She responded by tweeting “President Trump, I voted for you, which I now regret. Football is a powerful platform — here’s charitable work we did in Mexico City” (link). This revelation tells us a few different things.
First, despite the sheer number of times the mantra is repeated that “Trump’s base won’t abandon him no matter what,” we once again see evidence that it simply isn’t true. His approval rating has dropped by more than ten points since he took office, which numerically proves that he can lose supporters – and that he has in fact lost millions of supporters.
Second, this incident reveals just how prominent racism still is in American society. Donald Trump’s voters are either racist themselves, or they were willing to overlook his extreme racism. Now we have the wife of an NFL head coach admitting that she voted for the openly racist candidate. If Oakland Raiders players conclude that her husband – their head coach – also voted for the racist Trump, he may not be their head coach for much longer.
