House Oversight Committee char Elijah Cummings (D-MD) compared the racist chants at President Donald Trump’s rally about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to the backlash he got over 50 years ago when he tried to integrate a neighborhood pool.
During an interview on ABC News “This Week,” Cummings told show host George Stephanopoulos that the rally crowd’s “send her home” chants in response to Trump’s tirade about Omar brought up painful memories of how white Americans treated him during the civil rights movement.
In 1962, 12-year-old Cummings joined a campaign to integrate a nearby swimming pool, during which Cummings said he was beaten and had “all kinds of rocks and bottles thrown at me.”
“And the interesting thing is that I heard the same kind of chants,” the Democratic lawmaker said during his interview. “‘Go home. You don’t belong here.'”
“And George, I gotta tell you that I’m not the only person of color who’s had those kind of experiences,” Cummings added.
Cummings said that the chants and Trump’s racist rhetoric this week “brings up the same feelings I had over 50 some years ago.”
“And it’s very painful,” he said.
The day after the rally, Trump first claimed he “wasn’t happy” with the chanting (though he had let it continue for over ten seconds), then later praised the crowd “patriotic.”
Watch Cummings below:
Cummings: I heard the same "you don't belong here" chants when I was trying to integrate a pool over 50 years ago pic.twitter.com/qqTrVybjxT
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 21, 2019
I’d rather have people hear this interview than listen to that douche Miller.
The article is about Cummings. Whom are you referring to that needs to be removed from office?
Pretty sure the poster means Trump, at least that’s my guess.
Maybe I’m woefully naive, but I can’t understand how pissing off a majority of Americans with overtly racist statements is a winning electoral strategy.
I don’t think it’ll work for Trump, and it definitely won’t for down-ballot Republicans who’ll be caught trying to defend the indefensible. To me, it’s actually an easy call for Democrats -just say and do the right things and their base will vote in droves (wherever they’re not suppressed). If people of color don’t vote like their lives depends on it, I’ll be surprised.
In any case, we’ll see, but not soon enough.
It’s possible that they think they can win in the electoral college if enough white people vote for them in small, rural states and enough to tip the scales in some battleground states. They’ve written off the Pacific Coast and the North East. Trump could theoretically lose the popular vote by a big margin again, maybe lose more popular votes than in 2016, and still win the electoral college. And the Republicans may (will?) keep the senate.
ETA
And I think the Trumpers would love to see some violence that they could attribute to “the liberals,” “the left,” whatever. There’s going to be a lot of dirty tricks played by the GOP between now and the election.