Republicans have reportedly been pleading with Trump to stay on message — but his campaign just can’t seem to help itself.
On Tuesday, an official social media account of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign posted a racist meme implying that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, nice suburban neighborhoods will be overrun with hordes of Black people and immigrants.
“Import the third world. Become the third world,” read the post on X, the former Twitter.
Trump doesn’t need to win over his base - he, strategically, needs to win over independents. Open racism isn’t popular… the old “Ey took er jerbs” messenge will always resonate well but his level of demonizing immigrants has been classically unpopular - especially the “Criminals and rapists” style lines.
Here’s hoping he keeps up the racist uncle bullshit and turns off voters.
My feeling is that this message attacks foreigners rather than Americans of of any race. The foreigners in question are mostly Hispanic so I can see how it will be perceived as racist by some people, but just as Trump doesn’t have to win over his own base, he also doesn’t have to (and can’t) win over Harris’ base. Are the people who perceive this as racist already people who would never have voted for him anyway?
As a side note, Biden’s immigration policy isn’t even popular with Hispanics. I expect that most of them don’t prefer Trump’s policy, but Hispanics can be nativists too.