Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered her opinion on whether President Trump’s supporters are racist during an interview with Crooked Media’s Pod Save America podcast.
“First of all, the biggest mistake that we have — and it’s a trap that gets set by the Right, whether intentionally or unintentionally — is just the frame of asking, ‘Is blank racist?'” the New York Democrat explained, arguing the conversation needs to be about racism itself, not the people who ascribe to it.
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“Like all winning political phenomena … they rely on coalition building,” she continued. “So, Trump relied on a coalition, and a core part of that coalition were racists — building a coalition with all sorts of other people that could be susceptible to racist views if they were blanketed and layered and made people made feel good about it not being a racist thing.”
Ocasio-Cortez said many Trump voters do not believe they are racist because the national discourse does not educate people to recognize racism.
Trump has brushed off accusations of racism from Democrats by arguing that Ocasio-Cortez has accused even Nancy Pelosi of being a racist, after the House Speaker criticized her.
“Her own party called Nancy Pelosi a racist two weeks ago. The word is so overused, it’s such a disgrace. And I can tell you I’m the least racist person there is in the world, as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said.
