Source: The Washington Post / Getty
Apparently, folks on social media have noticed something about Donald Trump’s latest series of scheduled campaign stops in his bid to be reelected to get his spray tan and rust-orange butt shavings all over the Oval Office furniture again. People have noticed that the man whose racism seeps out of every one of his pores every time he has a thought about Black people and people of color is campaigning in cities that have legacies of being “sundown towns.” They were towns all across America, North, South, East and Midwest, pre-and-post Jim Crow law, that didn’t allow Black people to be in them after sundown–and used racial terror and violence to enforce the illegal practice.
Last month, we reported on the backlash Trump and his campaign received after scheduling a stop at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, Michigan, where white nationalist America’s favorite former president suggested that deputies there should be deployed to Detroit because he would “love to have them working there during the election.” That meant he was continuing to lie about election fraud happening almost exclusively in majority-Black voting districts in 2020–and that he was asking for armed law enforcement support in pursuit of that lie.
Well, according to the Independent: “A week later, Trump held a ‘town hall’ in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The next day, he rallied in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He will speak in the town of Mosinee, Wisconsin, on September 7.” All of these cities were sundown towns during Jim Crow.
At least he’s consistent?
Trump’s campaign has defended Trump by pointing out that President Joe Biden spoke in Howell in the past, and Vice President Kamala Harris once spoke in La Crosse, but those weren’t campaign events, and they weren’t part of a back-to-back-to-back tour of “Yes, we Klan” America.
It should also be noted that when it comes to touring through America’s white supremacy-friendly cities, Trump isn’t new to this, he’s true to this.
From the Independent:
Last year, Trump — while at the center of several criminal and civil investigations and alleging his political persecution by federal law enforcement — held his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas, smack in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the deadly 51-day siege that galvanized the far right and set the stage for the modern militia movement.
In 2021, Trump held a rally in Cullman, Alabama, a town that once advertised “No Blacks and No Indians” and warned “n*****, don’t the let the sun go down on your head” for decades.
But, okay. Let’s try to see it another way. Maybe it’s not that Trump is intentionally scheduling campaign stops in towns that either still are or were once racist AF. Maybe Trump’s campaign schedule just happens to look like a Green Book entry of places Black people should avoid for the same reason Republicans have run the overwhelming majority of Confederate states for multiple generations, and why today’s Klan members identify politically with the GOP, and vice versa: white and racist America is Trump and the GOP’s political bread and butter.
The real question is: How can Trump afford not to campaign in these cities, especially since Harris is gaining on him and even leading him in national polls and battleground state polls? I mean, if the Wicked Witch of the West was running for president, she would not exclusively campaign in Munchkinville, she would know she needed to take that yellow brick road to wherever the flying monkeys reside. (I don’t care if you’re a Wizard of Oz fan or not. This is a perfect analogy.)
The point is, Trump likely isn’t purposefully trying to send a message to Black people by campaigning in cities where we weren’t able to safely walk the streets whether the sun was down or not, but the fact that he needs to campaign in these areas consecutively is very telling.
Trump is just going where his people are. It’s that simple.
SEE MORE:
Sundown Towns Black People Should Be Aware Of
8 Songs That Accurately Reflect Trump’s Campaign. ‘Freedom’ By Queen Bey Surely Did Not.
