On Trump and the Matter of Colour.

Once upon a time I decided to leave Trump off the blogger radar. I felt he just wasn’t worth it and I was going to stop wasting my time on him. But now I’m intrigued by the latest headline of him asking a question about Kamala Harris: ‘Is she Indian or is she black?’ For some reason, he seems to think it matters, either to him or to his fellow Americans.

You see, I seem to recall that not long ago he was promising to ‘bring America together’ (I think it was shortly after he made that supremely fatuous remark about having ‘taken a bullet for democracy’), yet here is now playing the racist card. And what intrigues me is the effect this will have on ‘middle America’ – all those people we in the UK refer to as floating voters, people who have no regular political affiliation and make their decision at the end of the line.

I’m sure Trump’s remark will go down well with his loyal band of brothers, but that’s just preaching to the converted. And the true blues will probably be outraged, but that doesn’t matter either because their Democrat vote is already safe. But what about the don’t knows? Given the rules regarding Presidential nominations, it must be evident that Ms Harris was born in America. And it’s also evident that, apart from full blood Native Americans, nobody else’s ancestors came from America either if you go back just a relatively small number of generations. Will the don’t knows realise that and say ‘what the hell’, and pass it off as an ignorant rant by a man hardly qualified to run a hot dog stall?

Maybe I’ll never find out (although November should give some indication), but I am hoping that the opinion pollsters will take this matter up and the result will make the UK media. I’m guessing that it will make a difference and Trump might have shot himself in the foot this time, but that might just be wishful thinking.