With the midterms now a week away and President Donald Trump staring down the risk of a crushing loss in the House, he appears to be panicking — and doing more and more Trumpian things, from deploying troops at the border to threatening to repeal the 14th Amendment. And all the while he continues to hold rallies where he charges people up with the same fiery rhetoric, stroking his own ego.
Trump may believe that these actions will excite his base and persuade them to turn out in greater numbers. But racially charged appeals to the far right look particularly irresponsible after a week of domestic terrorist attacks.
Speaking to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on "Deadline: White House," Princeton history professor and Center for African-American Studies chairman Eddie Glaude, Jr. blasted Trump for pouring gasoline on the nation's tensions and expressed his fear that if Trump ends up losing — it's only going to get worse.
"He is most likely going to lose the House, he is going to lose some of the candidates he campaigned for," Wallace pressed him. "And he didn't just say vote for them, he didn't talk about them, he didn't bring them to the stage until 40, 50 minutes into those rallies. He said this is about me. He said vote for me. So if anyone he campaigned for loses, it is a giant failure on the part of this president."
"Yeah, and I don't know how he's going to behave," said Glaude. "I don't know how he's going to react, I don't know how his supporters will react if there's a blue wave."
In fact, Glaude continued, Trump is moving forward with the same inflammatory behavior that motivated the Tree of Life synagogue shooter Robert Bowers.
"Nothing is going to get better after this midterm," he continued darkly. "Everything is going to get more intense, and it may even get worse. But let me say this. Not only did he not do all the things you laid out, he introduced birthright citizenship. He doubled down. He doubled down on what motivated, what radicalized Bowers to go in there and kill those 11 people, he doubled down like a moral monster."
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