The Donald Trump Racist Train

For the past fifty years, the Republican Party has been a mash-up of fiscal conservatives, religious conservatives and White workers who complained that too many people of color were on welfare. This election cycle, Donald Trump has surprised the Republic Party by finding a comfy niche by reaching out to these working stiffs. White Collar Republicans are surprised and upset that the racist and irascible Trump has peeled off a good portion of their party and made it his own.

"I love the poorly educated!" - Donald Trump

Photo courtesy of NYMag.com

Trump followers believe that Democrats and Republicans are both complicit in causing the current congressional stalemate. Voting for Trump is their way of showing distain for the Republican Party. They lump Republicans in with immigrants, Muslims and Mexicans. They agree with Trump when he blasts our government for sending good-paying jobs to China.

In the past, the Republican Party used a subtle racist code to attract and assimilate these less-educated voters. But Donald Trump dispenses with such code and civility. According to many Trump sycophants, "Trump is not politically correct. He just tells it like it is.”

White Collar Republicans don‘t like that the veneer of their party is in tatters, exposing their bigoted underbelly. In 2016, the Republican Party wanted the elitist Jeb Bush as their standard bearer, not the unaffiliated and self-funded blow-hard Donald Trump.

Republicans never expected that any Presidential candidate would be so blatantly racist. The party leadership was definitely caught off guard. The party leadership, including the Bush's felt that Trumps bombastic remarks would be his downfall. But his working class followers loved it. Now the Republican Party is in total disarray, scrambling to stop the Trump express.

This devolution started when Rep. John Boehner lost control of the House of representatives to the upstart Tea Party. A few months removed from his resignation, the Republican Party has completely lost control of the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary Campaign narrative.

For the past seven years the Republican Party has been saying Barack Obama is tearing down America. That America was no longer great. Complaining that "Mexican" immigration was a big problem. Warning that Obama was giving free stuff to "minorities." And the annual White Collar Republican harangue ‑ that the rich should not pay more taxes because the government would just turn around and give their hard earned millions in the form of welfare to "lazy minorities."

But Trump isn't sticking to the standard Republican script. Donald Trump is being "blatantly" Republican. He is the product of seven years of Republican vitriol aimed at our "Black" President. Donald Trump was born from the ashes of a now fractured Republican Party and spawned by their racism.

My thoughts, my opinion, Jesús Manuel Mena Garza, March 3, 2016

Arizona's Next Scandal? Tea Party State Official Says Ethnic Studies Violates Ban

[Click on header to check out the rest of the story at the Huffington Post website.]

Arizona could have a new Ethnic Studies scandal on its hands, though not with the students or teachers.

Nearly one year ago, extremist Tea Party state senator John Huppenthal ran for Arizona's superintendent of education post with an inflammatory campaign to "stop la raza" and terminate Tucson's acclaimed Ethnic Studies/Mexican American Studies (MAS) Program.

At one of the most Orwellian press conferences in recent memory, Huppenthal kept his political campaign promise on Wednesday, June 15, at the Arizona Department of Education in Phoenix, declaring the Ethnic Studies/MAS Program to be out of compliance with the state's controversial ban. Huppenthal introduced a long-awaited and costly audit as proof that the MAS Program promoted resentment towards a race, was designed primarily for a particular ethnic race, and advocated ethnic solidarity. Within a few minutes, Huppenthal and his associate superintendent hastily exited the press conference for other engagements.

Just one glitch: On closer review, the audit -- which admittedly visited only 37% of the classes in the affected Tucson schools for a single 30-minute inspection -- contradicts most of Huppenthal's illusive claims and ultimately finds the MAS Program to be in compliance.

Not that the facts appear to bother the Tea Party politician, a featured speaker at Tea Party rallies that have catcalled President Obama as a "Communist" and "Nazi," or echoed Huppenthal's rants on the Senate floor that undocumented immigrants "nuclear-bombed" parts of Arizona's neighborhoods.

"This decision is not about politics, it is about education," Huppenthal read nervously from a printed statement. He proclaimed his "responsibility to uphold the law and a professional imperative to ensure every student has access to an excellent education."

In truth, the audit questions Huppenthal's own judgment: According to the audit, students in the MAS high school program "graduate in the very least at a rate of 5 percent more than their counterparts in 2005, and at the most, a rate of 11 percent more in 2010." The audit added:MASD programs are designed to improve student achievement based on the audit team's finding of valuable course descriptions aligned with state standards, commendable curricular unit and lesson plan design, engaging instruction practices, and collective inquiry strategies through Approved State Standards.

[Click on header to check out the rest of the story at the Huffington Post website.]

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