Donald Trump’s Coded Message to White-Nationalist “Accelerationists”

Even as his campaign stumbles through these bleak late-summer months, beset by a nationwide health and economic crisis that’s largely of his own making, President Donald Trump is blowing full-bore on his racist dog whistles. The president has, in recent weeks, accused his Democratic opponent, Vice President Joe Biden, of wanting to destroy “our beautiful suburbs.” He’s repeatedly made derisive comments about black public figures and floated racist “Kung Flu” conspiracy theories. He’s even threatened to designate Antifa as an official domestic terrorist group, despite the fact that no such designation actually exists.

It’s nothing new for Trump to traffic in racist tropes and false notions; these were, after all, present at the birth of his presidential campaign. But as a pandemic decimates communities and economies, and police clash with protesters on the streets of America’s major cities, there’s a different tenor to Trump’s latter-day rhetoric. In place of the border-wall fearmongering that Trump used to summon traditional conservatives to his side four years ago, there’s something more nihilistic, more slash-and-burn, about his declamations now. The man who once claimed that “I alone can fix it” now seems largely bent on pouring gasoline on every conflagration. The president who once decried “American carnage” now seems to want to play a strong role in facilitating it.