What’s the Point of Labeling Trump a Racist?

It’s one thing to debate his statements and actions, another to analyze his policies through the lens of an insult. Is President Trump a racist? The media have obsessed over this question for years now. This week, the dam seemed to break. After Trump’s alleged statements questioning why America needed more immigrants from “sh**hole countries,” virtually every anchor on CNN called Trump a racist. So did multiple writers for the New York Times; that newspaper even ran a supposedly comprehensive list of Trump’s racist activities. Not only did the media declare Trump a racist, they demanded that Republican members of Congress do so as well — and then they asked if Republicans were soft on racism if they refused to do so.

The media patted themselves on the back for this exercise. No matter that they’ve already accused Trump of virtually every crime under the sun. Labeling him a racist, they think, demonstrates their willingness to “speak truth to power.” Now, let’s stipulate a few facts. First, Trump makes racist statements, from his attacks on a “Mexican” judge to his willingness to wink at the KKK to his quasi-defense of some of the “good people” in the Charlottesville white-supremacist march. Second, Trump’s worldview is not openly racist — he’s not a representative of Richard Spencer–type white supremacism, declaring black Americans lesser, for example. With that in mind, let’s now ask a simple question: What’s the point of labeling Trump personally a racist?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455467/media-call-trump-racist-what-end