Tuesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the highest ranking republican on Capital Hill deemed Donald Trump‘s comments on federal judge Gonzalo Curiel the ‘textbook definition’ of racism.
Trump’s comments accused judge Curiel of being a ‘Mexican‘ and that he (Curiel) couldn’t be impartial in the ongoing Trump University civil fraud litigation because the billionaire real estate mogul is ‘building a wall’. These seething remarks from Trump came on the basis that Curiel was being ‘unfair’ to the Trump case since previously unsealed documents in the litigation were released by the federal judge much to the dismay of Trump and his legal team.
First off, Speaker Ryan’s statement condemning Trump is nothing new to the vast majority of Trump detractors who whole heartedly believe the GOP‘s pick for president is indeed a racist.
Top surrogates and supporters of Trump however seem to want to get caught up in the semantics of what racism is in this country.
To no fault of anyone but Mr. Trump it’s certainly easy to label him a racist based on past comments he’s made in the GOP primaries and as we shift to the general election. Let’s not forget this is the same guy who labeled what seemed to be the majority of immigrants from Mexico as ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers’ while also calling for a national wide ban of Muslims entering the country.
I myself didn’t want to rush to judgement in labeling him a racist at the time. However Trump’s more recent actions have certainly led me to label him (without any further doubt) maybe not a racist but definitely a bigot.
Sure there’s the ongoing notion that Mexican or Hispanics aren’t a race but an ethnicity or national identity. However it’s no secret that the a large majority of Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States identify that ethnicity or national identity as a race.
But lets not get caught up in semantics. Let’s also not get caught up in the synonyms of what Donald Trump actually is… He is a bigot and continues almost every day to further prove that.
You also don’t need to look any further than what’s actually going on between Trump and judge Curiel to draw up that conclusion.
Donald Trump suggesting that a judge because of his Mexican heritage can’t do his job on the bench may not be the definition of racism (based on semantics) but it’s certainly the definition of bigotry. Not to mention Trump had the audacity to try to mislead the public that this judge was strictly a ‘Mexican’ and not an American citizen was pretty atrocious. And if Trump wasn’t trying to mislead the public then why was he constantly referring to judge Curiel as a ‘Mexican’?
To further add to Trumps nonsense when it comes to Curiel, the presumptive nominee has further labeled Curiel as some radical leftwing bureaucrat associated with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) which simply isn’t true. Instead Curiel is part of the San Diego chapter of the La Raza Lawyers Association, who has no affiliation with the NCLR or any radical policies. In fact the SDLRLA is an affiliate of the Hispanic National Bar Association, something that various ethnic and racial groups around the country have in place. However Trump surrogates and supporters continue to try to further disparage judge Curiel by associating him with an organization which he simply isn’t apart of or has any connection to.
Finally, to further take away from Curiel’s ability to be impartial with Trump on the bench, the GOP presumptive nominee points to the federal judge appointing the Robbins Geller Law Firm to represent the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit against Trump University back in 2014. This much above anything else seems like much more of a legit reason to question Curiel being on the bench for a trial such as this.
But there’s still questions.
First, did Curiel actually appoint the Robbins Geller law firm who allegedly paid Bill and Hillary Clinton $675,000 in 2012 for speaking fees or did he simply approve the representation for the plaintiffs in the case? I guess another way of wording that is did Curiel actually go out and hunt down this particular law firm specifically? If not then the notion of Curiel appointing Robbins Geller is a bit misleading in and of itself.
Second, even if Curiel did appoint Robbins Geller, that in no way should draw the conclusion that the federal judge is out to get Donald Trump as so he’d like to lead on. Remember Trump wasn’t running for president back in 2014. There’s also a chance Donald Trump may have been donating money to the Clintons during that time since it’s not secret they were pals prior to the primary season. I also suspect there was no way in knowing that at the time Curiel had reason to believe that at some point in the near future Hillary Clinton would be running a presidential campaign against Donald Trump.
Lets not forget though, Donald Trump has every right to criticize the judge presiding over the Trump University case and make calls for the judge to remove himself from the trial. But why haven’t Trump’s lawyers been filing the paper work to recuse Curiel? I’m assuming because there’s no reason for Curiel to recuse himself from this particular case.
Like many other instances Donald Trump has done this to himself. He’s the one whose tried to deflect the attention away from Trump University and the ongoing civil fraud case to an issue of ethnicity, race and national identity when the specifics of the litigation has nothing to do with the aforementioned.
Unfortunately, Trump will continue to have his supporters scream how he ‘isn’t a politician’ and how he’s just ‘speaking off the cuff’. Even when those words are heavily laced with bigotry.
