US President Donald Trump has been accused of being a “raging racist” after he posted a series of tweets attacking Democratic congresswomen.
Trump claimed the women “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and then told them to “go back”.
His messages were widely decoded as referring to four left-wing Democratic women of colour: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar, only one of whom was born outside the US.
The Guardian described the tweets as a “racist attack” while the Washington Post wrote of “the unmistakable ugliness of Trump urging brown-skinned congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries”.
The New York Times did not hold back, saying the tweets see Trump “fan the flames of a racial fire,” with an opinion article arguing that they “prove Trump is a raging racist”.
CNN does not foresee any censure for the President, saying that he “knows he can trade in such base tactics because he will pay no price in a Republican Party cowed by his fervent political base”.
The row began when Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to say that it was “so interesting to see ‘progressive’ Democrat congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run.”
The US president continued: “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough.
“I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Democrats, including the quartet Trump indirectly referred to, have lined up to condemn the President’s words. Tlaib wrote on Twitter: “Want a response to a lawless and complete failure of a president? He is the crisis. His dangerous ideology is the crisis. He needs to be impeached.”
Omar described Trump as “the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen”. Pressley said: “This is what racism looks like. We are what democracy looks like.”
Ocasio-Cortez said “the country I ‘come from’, and the country we all swear to, is the United States”.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the president wants to “make America white again”.
Meanwhile, Justin Amash, the representative who announced earlier this month that he was leaving the Republican Party said Trump’s comments were “racist and disgusting”.
The President remains unrepentant. Responding to the outcry over his remarks, Trump said it was “sad to see the Democrats sticking up for people who speak so badly of our country”.
