Playing to the crowd on the racial left

Susie Madrak reports - gleefully? - a strange white fellow who tells us what - well, no.

It's probably not what he really thinks.

And there is something odd about his claims regarding racism and white supremacy, here.

To begin with, all white supremacists are racists.

Go check out internet dictionaries on "racism".

But most racists - I mean white racists, here, of course - are not white supremacists, white nationalists, exterminationists, and a whole lot of other awful things.

Though, yes, it has become common for people to refer to whites whose racism goes no further than wanting to maintain a white majority in the US and who are willing to go no further than fiddling with immigration rules to accomplish that as "white nationalists".

Trump seems to fall somewhere in that group, as do many of his supporters.

David Cay Johnston: Trump Is A 'Flat Out Full Racist'

"Listen, I think the record here is very clear," Johnston said.

"And maybe Miss Huckabee Sanders will think that the government should call for no one to hire me, and by the way, I don't get paid for these appearances -- Donald Trump is a racist. 

"He isn't just a white supremacist, he's a flat out, full racist. 

"Unless your definition of a racist is someone who hung somebody from a tree, he is a racist. 

"He's made awful comments over the years. 

"He is the embodiment of being a racist, just as Miss Huckabee Sanders' comments the other day, are the absolute embodiment of censorship, and should have upset every single person in america who has even a modest level of respect for our Constitution."

Phooey. Oh, pshaw.

"Wow," Reed responded. 

"I then have to ask you because the rebuttal from Trump's people will say, 'why is Darryl Strawberry praising him' or 'why is he friends with Don King?'

"But that is one of the great things not understood largely by people who haven't thought about these issues," Johnston said.

"That we had a black president didn't mean we're not a racist country anymore. 

"If we'd had Hillary Clinton, that didn't mean that feminism is no longer an issue or that we have equality by gender. 

"That's nonsense. 

"And let's remember that Strom Thurmond had a child with a black woman."