The Line King

At this point, I would never say that “At last, Trump has crossed the line and gone too far!!”  He’s crossed it too many time and has shown no limit to how far he’ll go.  But every once in a while he goes SO far SO egregiously that it seems to jog people to push him to another level.  And the sense I get is that latest racist attack on a minority member of Congress – and one that’s so virulent in its racist language and against a respected, long-established member this time in Rep. Elijah Cummings – appears to be one of those “crossed the line and gone too far” moments that prompted a more vocal reaction than usual. 

A tweet from Sen. Jeff Merkley is just one small example.  He wrote -- "Donald Trump is a disgrace to this country. Donald Trump is racist. Donald Trump doesn’t care about you or your family or your community. Donald Trump is a con man, and he only cares about Donald Trump."  And there was also Sen. Chris Murphy who said he was now going to stop following Trump's Twitter account, adding how shocked he was that he was even saying that.

It's not that people are putting more weight on the racist slam against Rep. Cummings than against the young women of "The Squad."  It's that that first series of racist attacks was the "set up," and (horrible as it was) one that we almost expected against young, first-term, minority women.  It wasn't as expected against a male, 25-year veteran of the House.  I also think that as visceral as the reaction has been to Trump over this, and would be under any condition, it wouldn't have been quite as powerful had not the previous racist attack been made against "The Squad" which also seemed to unite Democrats.  And even offend independents and some Republicans.  All the pieces fit together.  But there always does seem to be a point where Trump not so much doesn't "finally go too far this time and cross the line" but has overflowed the cup and so there's no more room for him on "this level," and he's moved to another level.  Charlottesville was one of those moments that moved to another level.  His defense of separating migrant families in cages was another.

No doubt you've seen it, but this commentary on CNN by host Victor Blackwell is part of that moving of Trump to another level.  We tend to be inured by tweets that admonish us that "Everyone needs to watch this."  Everyone doesn't need to watch this.  But it's one of the few such videos that is powerful and thoughtful enough to bear such attention.