Longacre: Even after debate ‘smackdown,’ race isn’t over

Donald Trump’s smackdown at the hands of Kamala Harris at the Sept. 10 debate was so complete that it left many of us feeling that it was over. Time to relax. In Trump’s mind, however, the opposite was true: He won the debate, hands down. He even quotes fake poll numbers to prove it. This twist on reality is reminiscent of his election denialism and follows Adolf Hitler’s maxim: “Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.” So, we better not relax just yet.

What makes Trump’s attitude particularly galling is one of the lies that cost him the debate (in reality), the lie that newly arrived Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating White people’s pets. This statement was not only false, but its repetition has made it dangerous for Haitians. The neo-Nazis who showed up and the bomb threats made to schools and even a hospital are real.

Even worse, politically, is not just the horrible White supremacist bigotry and fear-mongering; it’s the apparent strategy of creating enough race fear to prevent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown from winning reelection in Ohio, thus putting the Democratic control of the Senate in question.

But, for me, the most sinister thing about Trump’s debate performance is that Trump’s lies about immigrants come right out of the fascist playbook. He is blaming vulnerable “others” for everything wrong with this country, especially crime. If he gets back in and carries out his promised mass deportations, the results will be catastrophic, not just for Haitians and other immigrants but for America.

So, time to get to work to defeat Trump and his “Make America Great Again” campaign, up and down the ballot. As a football coach, Tim Walz, Kamala’s running mate, is used to saying: “You can relax when you’re dead.”

Frederick Longacre

Hockessin

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