Hello and happy Thursday. 95 days until the election. Today I'm starting off with a PSA about the dangers of mixing. Fried butter With politics.
Ads pop up in my Hulu feed, interrupting reruns of “The Rookie.” (My teenage kids are obsessed with “The Rookie.”) Nathan Fillion), and I am so angry.
It's about California Assembly Bill 886, a bill from Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, a former staffer to President Obama who represents a district that includes Berkeley. As someone who is at risk of losing her job every day, in my opinion, this bill is the last great hope for the news industry in California, and perhaps the entire United States.
Essentially, this bill would force Google and other internet platforms to share, rather than just steal, the revenue that this newspaper (which supports the bill) and all other news organizations make from selling advertising against the news they produce.
but Industry group representing Google and other internet companies have run streaming spots spreading Trump-level misinformation about the measure, making it seem as though companies like this are out to crush the weak.
“Tell your lawmakers: Support local journalism. No to well-connected media companies. Oppose AB 886,” the ad warns.
What? Are you kidding me? These internet companies spent over $1 million to kill this bill. The Times, along with other newspapers, laid off hundreds of people.
Here's my PSA: Fried butter — it looks good, but you'll regret it once you swallow that crunchy mucus.
Now, on to that crazy interview with Trump at the National Association of Black Journalists conference. There's a lot to unpack.
Presidential Candidate Donald Trump
(Matt Kelly/The Associated Press)
The new Abraham Lincoln
To recap, Trump was interviewed on a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists' convention on Wednesday, and before he took the stage there was some controversy among black journalists about whether Trump, with his long history of racist comments and lies (think “fine people on both sides”), should be speaking at the Chicago event.
Some people said it's a journalist's job to get answers from everyone, while others said giving a microphone to a racist only allows their prejudice to flourish.
As it turned out, they were both right. He rambled on and on. He attacked ABC News reporter Rachel Scott. When the panel didn't start on time, he spouted off racist tropes about black people being disorderly and late, and then claimed (as he has done many times before) that he'd done more for black people than Abraham Lincoln did when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Basically, he was being himself and expounding on his deep-fried butter theory. Is that a good thing?
Ok, so you're saying there's nothing new here.
Why is this important? There are a few reasons, but they all have to do with wedges (not butter!).
Stolen “Black Jobs”
First, Trump has updated his favorite “invader” rhetoric with a new threat: immigrants are now stealing “black jobs” (and, by extension, “Hispanic jobs”).
“Immigrants are taking jobs from black people. They just keep coming. They're invading. It's an invasion of millions of people,” he said in his usual articulate voice.
Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Trump is trying to capitalize on concerns about the border in black communities that are not new but are often overlooked.
“There is a lack of uniform and widespread support for immigration in the African-American community,” she told me.
Ange Marie Hancock, director of the Kirwan Institute for Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, said the roots of this divide lie in California, where a ballot measure, Proposition 187, demonized immigrants long before MAGA took to the banner.
At the time, politicians also exploited fears that immigrants would take away jobs and welfare.
“Someone is following in the footsteps of Pete Wilson,” Hancock said, referring to the California governor who used anti-immigrant hatred to win reelection.
Unfortunately, this tactic has proven just as effective today as it was in the 1990s, and Trump is seeking to use it to try to garner some of the black vote.
Harris shifted gears this week to tackle immigration, detailing her record of going after drug and human traffickers, but the rhetoric remains dominated by Trump (including the implication that “black” jobs are unskilled labor).
“This has had a huge impact, especially in cities where asylum seekers have been abandoned by Republican governors, as they step up to provide services that black people have had to wait, or continue to wait, for,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, told me.
“But it's totally ironic for him and other elected officials,” she said.
Black Enough
That cynicism is also apparent in the attacks on Kamala Harris, whom she calls “a scam.” Not black enough She is half South Asian, which means her identity as Black is somehow illegitimate.
“I've known her for a long time, not directly, but indirectly,” Trump said. “She's always been Indian, and she's just promoted her Indian ancestry. I only found out she was black a few years ago, when she happened to be black. And now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know, is she Indian or is she black?”
Of course, Harris has been vocal about her mixed-race roots — her mother is from South India and her father is from Jamaica — and there are 34 million mixed-race people in America (including me and my children) who constantly have to deal with the absurdity of other people having to determine who they are, but her roots aren't really the issue.
This was yet another attempt by an outsider to exploit existing rifts in the black community with heavy-handed tactics. But it failed. By Monday afternoon, former “Daily Show” correspondent Roy Wood Jr. #WhenIBecameBlack It's trending on Twitter (I would never call it X).
“Clearly, what is most disturbing is his attempt to strip Vice President Harris of her blackness,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, an adviser to Win with Black Women. “Given his past comments, we are not surprised by his comments today, but they are still disturbing.”
The problem with mean women
Beyond the racism, I want to point out that this whole mess has had a thick sauce of misogyny hanging over it, particularly in his attacks on ABC journalist Rachel Scott, who began the interview by trying to ask tough questions about his past racist comments. He is still attacking Scott on Twitter, but of course he has never answered her questions.
It reminds me of his attack on Megyn Kelly. 2015 Republican Presidential Debate When she asked him about calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”
“Her eyes were bleeding, she was bleeding everywhere,” an infuriated Trump told CNN later.
We've had so much Trump trauma since then that you'd be forgiven for not remembering that charming joke, but Trump has made it clear that he doesn't like women who challenge him, regardless of race.
But here's where we really dig into the irony: Trump isn't out of control. He's calculating, and he knows his audience. So why go to the NABJ conference when there's clearly a hostile audience?
“It was clear that he wasn't really there to win or convince anyone,” Hancock said.
Hancock said at best, Trump had been siphoning attention from Harris and his running mate, J.D. Vance, which he had been unable to control in recent days.
At worst, the whole affair was intended as a show-off for his supporters, to prove that “he was willing and able to stand up to black people and claim them as equals wherever he went.”
There's a racist in the house, there's a racist with the mouse, there's a racist here and there, there's racists everywhere, I'm going to steal this from a Dr. Seuss book.
Black voters may love his combative attitude, but Emory University political scientist Gillespie thinks it might not sit well with the average voter.
She said her mother was texting her throughout Trump's performance — a rare occurrence for an interview at a pundit forum — and people were paying attention.
“I think this video will go viral,” she said. “It was a very unpleasant media moment.”
What else to read
Must Read: Trump's first attempt to pivot to Harris fails
Soldiers on the ground: Auto Workers Union Endorses Kamala Harris for President
LA Times Special: Harvey Weinstein could be extradited to California after Governor Newsom signs warrant
P.S. See for yourself.
Trump and ABC's Rachel Scott.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
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