“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” Trump tweeted, per the Associated Press. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!”
Playing to his political base, Trump used his bully pulpit over the holiday weekend to stir up racial tensions, on purpose – accusing protesters pushing for racial equality and justice of engaging in a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history.”
Even the so-called White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, waded into the fray. She defended Trump in an interview on Fox News Channel, saying that “The president’s merely pointing out that we’ve got to let facts come out before we jump to judgment.”
It appears that neither Trump or McEnany know what they are talking about because the FBI quickly found out the noose was not left with malicious intent and was created to hold the garage door open. Bubba Wallace was not the one who found the noose, but a member of his racing team.
NEW: NASCAR driver Tyler Reddick fires back at Pres. Trump's call for an apology from Bubba Wallace: “We don’t need an apology. We did what was right and we will do just fine without your support.” pic.twitter.com/ALoZefkGhe
— ABC News (@ABC) July 6, 2020
Trump’s tweet made the presumption that Wallace had intentionally left the noose in his garage as part of some kind of publicity trick, engineered to get the Confederate flag removed from the NASCAR venue, according to PopCulture.com.
Wallace has not responded to Trump’s tweet, however, Tyler Reddick, driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, posted a reply to the president. “We don’t need an apology,” he wrote. “We did what was right and we will do just fine without your support.”
And as far as NASCAR going down in the ratings – Trump got that wrong, too. One FOX Sports executive immediately tweeted that NASCAR viewership increased by eight percent since the return from a 10-week hiatus.
NASCAR viewership on Fox networks is up +8% since returning from its pandemic hiatus on May 17.
— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) July 6, 2020
To deflect from the really crappy job his administration is doing with the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has changed his focus to getting reelected in November. But he is trailing vice-president Joe Biden in the polls.
It looks like Trump has fallen back on the only thing he is good at – and that is creating confusion and dissent. The only problem now is that he has taken the election from a Republican versus Democrat contest to something much worse.
One critic says it's part of a growing pattern on the part of Trump, his campaign and allies to push racially inflammatory language and then, after widespread outrage, claim ignorance. July 4, 2020
Trump is now gleefully pitting not only Blacks against whites but pro-segregationists against the rest of America. To me, Trump’s tactics are reminiscent of Alabama Governor George Wallace. In 1968, Wallace, who espoused a segregation platform, ran for president against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, Thank God he lost.
In 1963, when he won the governorship of Alabama, Wallace proclaimed that he stood for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. called Wallace “perhaps the most dangerous racist in America today.”
The biggest difference between Wallace and Trump is that unlike Wallace, Trump has no morals or empathy. And believe me, Trump is now showing his racist leanings, and it is loud and clear.
