As the mid-terms approach, New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters played the electoral race card on the front page of Thursday's edition: “In Midterm Vote, Fault Line Forms Concerning Race – Cues From President – Diverse Democratic Slate at a Time of Appeals to Racial Anxiety.”
Democratic nominees for governor include three African-Americans, two of them in the old Confederacy, a prospect that not long ago would have been unthinkable. Record numbers of women are competing in congressional races. Elsewhere, Muslims, gays, lesbians and transgender people will be on the ballot for high-profile offices.
That diverse cast is teeing up a striking contrast for voters in November at a time when some in the Republican Party, taking their cues from President Trump, are embracing messages with explicit appeals to racial anxieties and resentment. The result is making racial and ethnic issues and conflicts central in the November elections in a way that’s far more explicit than the recent past.
Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have made crime, violence, gangs and societal unrest a centerpiece of their attacks against Democrats in this election, often linking them to causes that have a common racial thread -- the policies of liberal leaders in heavily minority cities, illegal immigration and Mr. Trump’s continuing campaign impugning the patriotism of professional athletes, many of whom are black.
A possible preview played out Wednesday barely 12 hours after Andrew Gillum, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, won a surprising victory in Florida’s Democratic primary for governor.
Mr. Gillum’s opponent, Ron DeSantis, described Mr. Gillum in an interview on Fox News as an “articulate spokesman” for far-left views and said voters should not take a gamble on him because he would “monkey this up” -- referring to the progress made under Florida’s current Republican governor, Rick Scott.
....
Racial discord has never been far from the surface of American politics. But critics say any effort by Republicans in recent years to tread lightly around racially sensitive issues has been tossed aside by Mr. Trump, who has created a permission structure for other politicians to mimic his behavior, political strategists said.
Worries about murderous gangs is somehow an appeal to racial fears.
And many of the issues that involve race and ethnicity are part of the party’s core messages on subjects like immigration. In many ads, Republicans are invoking the Latin American MS-13 gang as a growing menace. They are linking Democrats to the left-wing movement to “Abolish ICE,” the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
And in the last week conservative lawmakers, media personalities and Mr. Trump have found a new cause in the murder of a 20-year-old Iowa college student, Mollie Tibbetts. The police arrested a Mexican national, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who the authorities said was in the country illegally....
At least Peters didn’t accuse Republicans of “seizing” or “pouncing” on the murder, as he did earlier this month.
Peters noted in passing that women are especially “less inclined to support a candidate once they find out that the candidate supports policies that would hinder immigration enforcement like getting rid of I.C.E.” Then he turned to Trump’s alleged racial attacks, for attacking Rep. Maxine Waters, who previously urging Trump-haters to confront his staff in public.
His more regular insult for Ms. Waters -- “low I.Q.” or “very low I.Q.” -- hits a theme he has used before in criticizing black people who take him on.
Newsbusters has shown Trump uses low-intelligence insults on a lot of people, far from just blacks.
Peters really scraped to dredge up what he called “racial subtext.”
A new ad produced by the Republican Governor’s Association attacks the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, for “tapdancing” around issues. It shows a pair of dancing feet, reminiscent of an African-American performer like Sammy Davis Jr. and then criticizes Ms. Abrams for failing to pay her taxes....
Meanwhile, instances of Democrats being genuinely racist (like the slur of “ching-chong” in a state senate race in Michigan) are reliably ignored by the Times.
Then this arbitrary smear of a Republican:
And in Colorado, the Republican candidate for governor, Walker Stapleton, is having to confront his family’s dark past. His great-grandfather, a longtime mayor of Denver, was a powerful Ku Klux Klan leader.
In July, the paper devoted a full-page story to this same sliming of Republican candidate Stapleton for the sins of his grandfather.
