The Atlantic

Why Donald Trump’s Racist Language Isn’t Debatable

Whether the president’s tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color are bigoted cannot be decided solely by dictionary definitions.
Source: Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty

Last night, while President Donald Trump was keeping up his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color at a rally in North Carolina, Merriam-Webster tweeted out that the most searched term in its online dictionary at that time was racism.

It’s been that kind of week—though hardly the first of its nature in the Trump era—when bigoted comments from the president have dominated the national discourse, and have led many to label the remarks as racist. That includes Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats (along with a few Republicans) in the House of Representatives, who passed a nonbinding resolution denouncing Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

On Sunday, Trump that Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib should “go back”” at Trump’s rally.)

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