Trump warns that black mobs will invade the suburbs

Black Live Matter activists, anarchists, and Antifa members are coming for you, the president said, in a message to “The Suburban Housewives of America.''

"Your home will go down in value and crime rates will rapidly rise," President Trump said after sending unidentified federal troops to Portland following days of protest against police brutality. "People have worked all their lives to get into a community, and now they're going to watch it go to hell. Not going to happen, not while I'm here."

One of Trump's first acts as a businessman in the 1970's was to discriminate against African-American tenants seeking apartments in Brooklyn. Government affidavits show that Trump used code words and the letter "C" to identify black tenants, and a doorman was told to tell prospective black and Puerto Rican tenants that the rent was twice what it actually was.

So with things not exactly going his way these days, he reached for what he knows best.

Speaking to suburban "housewives,' Trump wrote, “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!”

And a few days later : "I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low- income housing built in your neighborhood,''

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Aside from being unaware that working women replaced housewives in the suburbs decades ago, Trump also appears not to know that those black people he uses to scare his base have also been suburban residents for years. In fact, one in four suburban voters identified as nonwhite, according to AP VoteCast in 2018. Despite the efforts of Trump and others like him, many suburban towns have gradually become less segregated by race over time.

But Trump is not done yet. It was not enough to be an instrument of racial bigotry and animus during the heated atmosphere of the 1970s, he's decided to dismantle fair housing laws in 2020. His attempts to gut the law would make it easier for landlords to discriminate, even if they are allegedly doing so unintentionally. Trump's administration also chose to kick the legs out from under affordable housing, despite the legislation making it through the House and Senate in a bipartisan vote.

So who does Trump think is out there in those "dream-like" suburbs.? As a suburban resident myself, I see people from a range of ethnic groups in the area where I live, and Black Lives Matter signs have sprouted in recent weeks.

As a child, I also lived in a suburban home. I recall watching those race riots on television filled with angry whites in Boston and Yonkers flood the streets to prevent African Americans families from buying homes and their children attending school.

In our little corner of the world, no one moved when we moved in, though for years we were among only a few black families. That neighborhood today is a stable mix of mostly white residents sprinkled with people from a range of cultures, and more diverse than when I was growing up there.

So who is Donald Trump talking to? Perhaps that elderly white woman reaching for the phone while a dark shadow hovers near her front door as she waits on hold with the police in his most recent campaign ad.

Trump, a racist and unrepentant violator of housing rights and civil rights, is the one who living in a dream state of a bygone era when he and his father could crush the home-owning of working- class African-americans and others. This dark vision of his mind that is all that he can offer, and what he projects onto America.