Los Angeles Times

Commentary: The Trumpist white minstrel show

Donald Trump is back at it, taking his political vaudeville to campaign rallies from Texas to Wisconsin to Florida. "I'm winning!" he recently crowed to supporters at Montana's Rimrock Auto Arena. To boot, impeaching him would turn the U.S. "into a Third World country," he complained. Twitching his face between a snarl and pout, Trump pivoted from bully to martyr on script. With his grab bag of physical flairs and verbal tics, Trump is upending America's whole idea of "acting white."

The racist assumption that conflates education, erudition and worldliness with whiteness has eroded, thanks in part to the last occupant of the Oval Office, who is

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