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For Trump, Racism Is an Election Strategy. For the Republican Right, It’s a Path to Power.

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Most Republican leaders sat in shameful silence after President Trump told four women of color in the House of Representatives—three of them born in the U.S—to “go back” to  the “crime infested” countries they came from. When called on his racist rhetoric, Trump doubled down and dialed up the volume, accusing these elected officials of hating America and again inviting them and anyone else like them to leave. His followers picked up on his cue, chanting “send her back” after Trump slammed Rep. Ilhan Omar at a political rally.

Trump’s racist rants and policy pronouncements aren’t just a glimpse into his id; they’re part of a strategy for inflaming his supporters against perceived threats from “the other”—people of color, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people and “socialists”—in order to win elections.  And for the right-wing political machine that has embraced him, that’s the key to their real endgame, which is to maintain and increase the access to power that they’ve gained since Trump came into office. That power is apparent in Trump’s massive tax cut for the wealthy, in the administration’s aggressive moves to overturn regulations that protect individuals, communities, and the environment, and in the judges they hope will gut the federal government’s constitutional authority to act on behalf of the common good.

This is not to say that Trump’s racism is not heartfelt. Decades of evidence suggest that it is. But Trump also apparently believes that his campaign tirades against immigrants put him in the White House. And he has clearly decided that he can win re-election by fully embracing that strategy. That’s why his administration has embraced cruelty as official policy, even to the point of stealing babies from their parents—and perpetuating conditions that are traumatizing and, yes, killing children.

For Trump, it’s a playbook for winning. For those who see themselves as pious or otherwise respectable Republicans, what could be worth all the horror and humiliation?

Power.

Groups from every corner of the conservative movement are enjoying the fulfillment of long-held wish lists, which is why right-wing leaders—including Trump’s evangelical cheerleaders—will do anything for him, and tolerate or actually cheer anything he says or does, no matter how base or cruel.

Recall that when Trump jumped into the presidential race, it wasn’t as a movement conservative. His candidacy was an ego-stroking power trip that followed the demagogic path cleared by right-wing authors, radio hosts and TV pundits who had primed millions of Americans to resent “illegal aliens” and “political correctness” and not to trust the “liberal media.”

Trump likes to believe he’s the genius who created the conditions for his own victory. It’s true that he brought the strongman bombast his followers love, but the conditions for his success were created by a massive infrastructure of think tanks, media outlets, and political organizations funded for decades by right-wing foundations and wealthy conservatives. Alongside and overlapping that movement is the Religious Right, which spent decades building its own infrastructure and effectively taking over the Republican Party from the bottom up.

Trump’s advisers know where power resides in today’s GOP. When Trump picked Mike Pence as his running mate, he simultaneously signaled the two most important Republican power blocs that had previously been suspicious of him—Religious Right leaders and the Koch brothers’ political networks. And when Trump pledged to turn over the selection of Supreme Court justices to the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, he won allegiance both from activists eager to ban abortion and reverse progress toward LGBTQ equality—and from those eager to further weaken the power of unions and reverse decades of progressive regulation and court rulings.

Which is how we got to where we are today, when white evangelical Christians are the most unapologetic and unquestioningly loyal defenders of the “anointed” Trump, no matter what he says or does or who he hurts. In return, they’re getting the Supreme Court of their dreams and an executive branch that is advancing its anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ policy agendas.

And when Mick Mulvaney, elected to Congress in the 2010 Tea Party wave, is using his power as White House chief of staff to push executive branch agencies to more aggressively reverse regulations that might inconvenience corporations. One advantage of authoritarian governments for those on the inside has always been the power to plunder.

Then there’s the assault on the judiciary. The harmful judges that Trump and Mitch McConnell are putting in lifetime positions on the federal courts are being counted on by his supporters not only to reverse Roe v. Wade and marriage equality and landmark decisions upholding separation of church and state, but also dismantle the administrative state and undo the New Deal and Great Society programs by returning us to a 19th century state-rights-focused interpretation of the Constitution that would drastically restrict the authority of the federal government to regulate corporate behavior.

Trump’s personal goals for his presidency may focus on self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment, and reversing any step taken by the Obama administration. But the right-wing movement’s more audacious goal—to reverse much of the legal and social progress of the past century—depends on keeping Trump in the White House and continuing to pack the courts with judges chosen for their youth as well as their ideology so as to extend Trump’s influence for decades beyond his time in the White House.

Republican leaders and prominent conservatives have apparently made the shameful and cynical calculation that the goal of achieving their turn-back-the-clock agenda is so worthwhile that if achieving it requires creating a brutal humanitarian catastrophe, or undermining constitutional checks and balances, or poisoning our political culture with racist and nativist rhetoric that energizes violent bigots and white nationalists, so be it.

This article was originally published at Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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‘I Didn’t Say That You Said That’: Trump Backpedals as ‘Obnoxious’ Reporter Corners Him

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December 8, 2025

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President Donald Trump tried to backpedal on last week’s promise to release full video of a second boat strike some are calling unlawful, when cornered by a reporter he subsequently denounced as “obnoxious” and “terrible.”

Video shows that Trump did promise to release the full video, telling reporters last Wednesday, “whatever they have, we’d certainly release.”

On Monday, ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott said to Trump, “Mr. President, you said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela.”

READ MORE: GOP Struggles to Message on Affordability as House Republicans Kill Affordability Bill

“I didn’t say that,” Trump replied. “You said that, I didn’t say that.”

“This is ABC fake news,” the president added.

“You said that you would have no problem releasing the full — okay, well, Secretary Hegseth —” Scott continued.

“Whatever Hegseth wants to do is okay with me,” Trump said.

“He now says it’s under review,” she explained. “Are you ordering the secretary to release that full video?”

“Whatever he decides is okay with me,” Trump responded.

After the president claimed that every boat the U.S. military destroys saves 25,000 American lives, the reporter pressed him to confirm his position on releasing the video.

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

“Didn’t I just tell you that?” he charged.

“You said that it was up to the secretary,” she responded.

“You are an obnoxious reporter in the whole place,” Trump said, attacking Scott. “Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious, a terrible, actually a terrible reporter, and it’s always the same thing with you.”

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

 

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GOP Struggles to Message on Affordability as House Republicans Kill Affordability Bill

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3 hours ago

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December 8, 2025

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Republicans are taking heat on two fronts as they struggle to win the affordability messaging battle while killing affordability legislation.

“Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists tell NBC News they worry that high prices and their party’s poor messaging on affordability could cost them in the midterms,” the news network reported over the weekend.

Politico reported on Monday that “Republicans are divided over how to address growing cost-of-living concerns over health care, housing, student debt and more.”

READ MORE: ‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

As President Donald Trump calls affordability a “hoax” and a “con job,” recent polls show his approval rating is underwater, and some say Republicans have not made the affordability crisis a central legislative focus.

Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune appeared to suggest affordability is an issue to tackle down the road.

“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Leader Thune said in an interview, Politico noted. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”

One of the things Senate Republicans did was join with Democrats to pass out of committee — unanimously, some Democrats noted — a bill to improve housing availability and affordability.

House Republicans killed the legislation, known as the ROAD to Housing Act.

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

“Just this weekend, congressional leaders released a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act without housing legislation sought by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and other key House Republicans objected.”

Senate Democrats expressed outrage.

“Leave it to House Republicans to fumble a comprehensive, bipartisan housing package that passed out of the Senate committee UNANIMOUSLY!” decried U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN).

“Unbelievable,” lamented U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). “House Republicans just killed our broadly bipartisan housing affordability bill, which would have been a great first step towards lowering skyrocketing rents & mortgages. Republicans are actively torpedoing progress towards lowering your rent.”

“Trump claims he wants to lower housing costs, but his allies in the House just axed a bipartisan bill that UNANIMOUSLY passed the Senate to do just that,” noted U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “If Republicans keep blocking legislation to cut housing costs, Democrats will pass it ourselves when we take back Congress.”

The communications director for U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Singer, summed it up: “It’s not the message, it’s the policies.”

Economist and economics professor Justin Wolfers told CNN, “When we talk about affordability, so much of what’s going on with prices is in fact a direct result of public policy. We’ve seen tariffs that have raised costs. We’ve seen a big rise in deportations, which are making it difficult for farmers to bring in their crops. We’ve seen health insurance premiums rise as Congress has fiddled with Obamacare subsidies.”

READ MORE: ‘Chance Some of This Backfires’: GOP Grows Anxious Over Trump’s Redistricting Gambit

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

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‘Corrupt’: Kushner’s Role in Warner Brothers Discovery Takeover Bid Draws Fierce Blowback

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5 hours ago

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December 8, 2025

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On Sunday, President Donald Trump declared that he will “be involved” in the federal government’s decision on whether to allow the streaming service Netflix to buy mass media and entertainment conglomerate Warner Brothers Discovery. On Monday, Paramount Skydance, another mass media and entertainment conglomerate, announced a hostile takeover bid for WBD — with news soon following that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm is part of the Paramount offer.

“Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case,” Axios reported. “Paramount is led by David Ellison, whose billionaire father Larry is a major supporter of President Trump.”

Axios added that Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, “was not mentioned in Paramount’s press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid, nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.”

READ MORE: White House: Trump to Spin ‘Positive’ News About Jobs as Layoffs Spike

Fortune reported that “Affinity and the other outside financing partners have agreed to forgo any governance rights, which Paramount said means the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States would have no jurisdiction over the transaction.”

But Axios’ Sarah Fischer wrote on social media: “Ask yourself, why would anyone want to put money into an investment of this caliber and have no governance rights or board seats?”

“Essentially,” she added, “people want to have control/access/political power behind the scenes.”

“Reality is,” Fischer explained, this hostile takeover is a good explanation “of how capitalism/democracy can be exploited for political gain,” with “Paramount essentially betting our open system incentivizes shareholders to take [the] best financial deal even if it means giving soft power” to three sovereign wealth funds, the President, and his son-in-law.

READ MORE: ‘Chance Some of This Backfires’: GOP Grows Anxious Over Trump’s Redistricting Gambit

Critics are blasting Kushner’s and Trump’s involvement.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) remarked, “Donald Trump said he’ll ‘be involved in’ deciding if Netflix can buy Warner Bros. Is that an open invite for CEOs to curry favor with Trump in exchange for merger approvals? It should be an independent decision by the Department of Justice based on the law and facts.”

Award-winning journalist Sophia A. Nelson, responding to trump’s remarks, observed: “This is ridiculous. Corrupt. And NOT what a President gets involved in.”

Professor, investor, and marketing executive Adam Cochran wrote: “Trump is talking about him personally being involved in deciding the fate of the Netflix-Warner Brothers deal, and how it’s ‘bad.’ Meanwhile his son-in-law is financing the competing offer. There has truly never been a more corrupt administration in US history!”

Alexander Vindman, former Director of European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), wrote: “F– NO to another corrupt Trump deal. Nepobaby, Jared’s, involvement would deliver CNN to MAGA.”

NewsNation’s Kurt Bardella, a communications advisor and media relations consultant, asked: “Alexa, what is a ‘conflict-of-interest’?”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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