Witcover: Trump doubles down on racism

Not satisfied with calling on four congresswomen of color to “go back” to where they came from, President Trump has now targeted one of the most distinguished black congressmen, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, with his slander and venom.

In a series of tweets, Mr. Trump castigated Mr. Cummings for supposedly neglecting his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested” Baltimore district, where “no human being would want to live.” Mr. Cummings also happens to be chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee investigating the president’s various alleged corruptions raised in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Mr. Trump called Baltimore, about half of which is in Mr. Cummings’ district, “a very dangerous and filthy place” that has received much federal largesse as a result of Mr. Cummings’s political clout.

“Where is all this going? How much is stolen?” Mr. Trump demanded. “Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!”

This transparent Trump pivot from his latest racist tirade to attacking one of his most prominent black critics in Congress brought a pointed rebuff from 2020 Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. At a weekend NAACP national convention, he said: "We have a president who is a racist. We have a president who is trying to divide the American people based on the color of their skin."

Mr. Trump’s decision to target the four congresswomen and now Mr. Cummings, all outspoken allies against Trumpism, augurs a 2020 presidential campaign driven even more by his strategy of racist division and white supremacy.

Such a political game plan could strengthen the president’s hand with the limited constituency of angry and socially disaffected white voters who brought him the Oval Office via the Electoral College in 2016. But it also could reinforce the strong backing of black voters who cling to former Vice President Joe Biden for his decades-long championing of civil rights legislation.

All we know for sure at this point is that Mr. Trump’s pivot to racism this early in the 2020 presidential race assures even greater ugliness in a campaign already excessively tainted with it.

Jules Witcover is a syndicated columnist and former long-time writer for The Baltimore Sun. His latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power” (Smithsonian Books). His email is juleswitcover@comcast.net.