Donald Trump’s repeated bashing of former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao in a shocking anti-Asian attack is not only “disgusting” but moronic politics, a Bloomberg columnist warned on Friday.
Trump’s racism is stupidly alienating a powerful voting bloc with “increasing influence,” wrote Robert A. George.
If the Republican Party does not have the guts to confront Trump about his “ideological or moral” failures, “how about doing it for violent political purposes?” he asked.
George was pointedly referring to Trump’s relentless, blatantly racist attack on Truth Social against Chao, apparently mostly as a way to get back at political enemy Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) – and because Chao left the Trump administration after the violence of the uprising on January 6, 2021 .
Trump’s attack echoes the juvenile naming of COVID-19 as “Kung Flu” — but worse, George said.
Calling a Taiwanese-American woman “Coco Chow” … “crosses a line rarely seen in politics (at least if you don’t count Trump),” George wrote. Racist “name-calling” as Chao notes, is “commonly hurtful to many Asian Americans,” he notes.
Chao, who remained silent about the attack for months, finally told Politico in a statement earlier this week: “When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience to next generation,” he added. Trump “doesn’t seem to understand, which says more about him than it will say about Asian Americans.”
The blow will be on Trump — and Republicans, George warned. Trump’s behavior and lack of criticism of Republicans is “politically stupid,” he said, because many Asian Americans are open to Republican policies. But “Trump’s animus is almost pathological,” and he certainly won’t be stopped, or checked by his party, George said.
He warned that Trump “continues to make racist comments about Asian American women who have served in more than four Republican administrations (including his own) – while other Republicans say nothing – well, the Democratic 2024 political ads practically wrote themselves. Especially if Trump is nominated.