Michael Eric Dyson: City Vote Fraud Claims Is Trump’s Dog-Whistle to White Supremacists

Vanderbilt University professor Michael Eric Dyson said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud in large cities is a dog-whistle to “white supremacist and white nationalists” that he is their guy.

Anchor Chuck Todd said, “President Trump is using old dog whistles to talk about voter fraud. He’s talking about the cities, and I guess we should maybe we should be glad he’s only using a dog whistle when he says the cities. Long-term damage that’s being redone here in your mind?”

Dyson said, “It’s pretty unparalleled, a sitting president of the United States of America attacking with such vitriol and viciousness the very process of democracy that landed him the job, to begin with. So while he undercuts the process of American democracy, he’s undercutting his own legitimacy, the very thing which he’s been obsessed over these years. But think about the dog whistle that, in some instances, it has been far louder. He’s attacking Detroit, 79% Black. He’s attacking Atlanta 59% Black. He’s attacking Philadelphia 42% Black. He’s attacking Milwaukee 39% Black. We get what he’s doing here. He’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too, so to speak. He has an uptick in voting among African-American people by 5% among Black men, 4% among Black women, and at the same time, he wants to whistle to white supremacist and white nationalists he’s still their guy.”

He added, “He will continue to send out the notion that somehow this is a fraud, the fraud is related to race, race is illegitimate, and as a result of that, you as a white person have every reason in the world regardless of your stratification, whether you’re making $100 million a year or whether you’re barely making $10,000 to vote for me because I’m your guy. This is destructive to the process of American democracy and one of the most powerful repudiations of enlightenment. Here is a guy who is anti-science, he’s anti-race, he’s anti-everything that makes this country it seems the very great thing he wants to make it.”

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