Perhaps because they are running scared, the Trump family—and Republicans in general—are going all-in on a campaign of overt racism and white supremacist dog whistles to rally MAGA voters across the country as Tuesday’s midterm elections approach.
And in a continual effort to please his racist daddy, Donald Trump Jr. is doing his part to spread the hate.
On Saturday, Don Jr. tweeted an attack against independent Maine Sen. Angus King that could have come straight from the white supremacist Iowa Republican congressman Steve King. It had the standard fearmongering of the “other,” in this case, Syrian and “Somalian” refugees; it criticized Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish; and for good measure, it included the dog whistle term “88,” which neo-Nazis use as code for “Heil Hitler.”
And no, it wasn’t a typo.
“Angus King is a Fake Independent who votes with Schumer 88% of the time. Angus wants to repopulate Maine with Syrian and Somalian refugees. Support @SenatorBrakey who fights for secure borders and Better Jobs for Maine. #me #maine,” Don Jr. tweeted.
“Repopulate.” Where have we heard that concept, which is linked to the myth of “white genocide,” before? Oh, that’s right—Steve King.
As BuzzFeed’s Hayes Brown pointed out, that 88% statistic is wrong. King voted in agreement with Schumer 83% of the time in the 115th Congress, according to ProPublica. But Don Jr. knew that.
“Let’s be clear about what happened here — Donald Trump Jr misstated statistics so he could attack Angus King with a neo-Nazi dogwhistle,” ThinkProgress journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted.
Republican Senate candidate Eric Brakey, currently a state senator from Maine, was elated with the message. “Thank you, we support your family!” Brakey tweeted back at Jr.
Less than a week ago, Brakey tweeted out a similar message, claiming the “left” has a “new strategy” of “mass importation of new voters to transform our political culture.”
Tuesday can’t come fast enough.