Trump: A Racist Down to His Shin Spurs (Opinion)

Donald Trump lied this week (no surprise) and said he doesn't have a racist bone in his body.

Much like cancer, racism is tough to beat. You have to be committed to eradicating it from your body. And there's always the chance that it will return, when you least expect it.

I've been a racist. I've said racist things. Hell, I even won the opportunity to appear on the Howard Stern Show as part of their 2002 "Meanest Listener Contest" by intentionally using the N-word. Am I proud of that accomplishment? In retrospect, it's an experience I will always remember. But now there's an asterisk.

I don't consider myself a racist now. I didn't consider myself a racist then. Even when I was being bullied as a young teenager and switched from public school to a private school. That was when I actually had that "my best friend is a black guy" phase. But I didn't walk around boasting "black kids drove me out of my school but I don't hold it against them!!" The situation might have hampered my development as a member of society, teaching me to hate people who didn't look like me. But it didn't.

What has happened over the past 20 years? The culture changed. Standards changed. Social media happened. Activists culled through decades and centuries of institutional racism and called people on their shit. And you could either accept that racism existed – and adapt – or you could deny and bang your head against the wall.

That's what Donald Trump is doing. The Presidency is a mantle some people are not immediately worth of holding. They grow into it, by admitting that they've made mistakes and their previous views might be wrong for the nation. But that's not Trump. His position is that he never makes mistakes – any mistakes are made by people underneath him, or wrong information, or fake news, or (when he said there were airports in the 1800s) a busted TelePrompter.

Trump is 72 years old. He has not evolved. He refuses to evolve. He wants a nation of followers – a dictator with rallies of goose-stepping minions – who agree with his beliefs, in lockstep. Witness politicians like Steve Scalise baldly lying and saying the GOP never disrespected Obama the way the Democrats are "disrespecting" the current racist President. This is such a laughable claim, from the rep who screamed "you lie" during an Obama "State of the Union" speech to an open letter that Republicans wrote to Iran to say Obama didn't represent the United States (!) during nuclear negotiations.

Have a I completely changed? Am I a totally new person, never thinking or saying something that can be construed as racist? That's not for me to say. I'm different than I was five years ago, more different than 10 years ago, and definitely different than 30 years ago.

Trump? Not so much. He was a racist slumlord in the 1970s when he and his father (who attended a Nazi rally in Queens) settled a housing lawsuit with the FBI – refusing to admit any wrongdoing, of course. He was a racist in 2017 when he said there were good people "on both sides" at Charlottesville. To deny Trump's racism is to deny your own racism. See it, own it, grow from it. Trump will never do that. America must see that, own that, and grow with a post-Trump government.

Friendship Trumps Howard Stern's View of Presidency

As a 30-year listener to Howard Stern, I was eager this morning to hear his take on Friday's executive order banning immigrants from seven countries, issues by President Trump.

I sat through nearly four hours of phony phone calls, Wack Pack mayhem with longtime caller Steve From Florida, and a surprisingly emotional interview with sports broadcaster Joe Buck, until Robin Quivers got to the news.

Twenty minutes in, we got the following exchange, about the political activism on display at the SAG Awards on Sunday night.

Robin: Julia Louis-Dreyfus pointed out that she is the daughter of an immigrant who fled religious persecution by the Nazis.
Howard: No Baba Booeys, huh?

Howard has gone out of his way not to badmouth his longtime friend of the show Donald Trump. He even felt it was necessary to chastise media outlets who played selected clips of Trump's radio appearances during the election cycle that pointed out the candidate's sexist attitudes about women.

In doing so, Stern is performing an elaborate game of Limbo – how low can Trump go without Stern giving his true opinions and offering commentary. Robin is not baiting him; she often gets criticized for reporting "old news," and this was certainly one of the most important and pertinent topics of the day.

It's going to be interesting to see how long Stern can maintain this guise. Is he angling for an invitation to the White House? Walking a tightrope to not agitate his most left-wing Hollywood friends? (Even Jimmy Kimmel called one Trump cabinet nominee a "piece of shit".)

But in avoiding controversy by not alienating his "friend" Donald Trump, Stern is terribly disappointing many fans. It's one thing to become intensely politically correct. Or to avoid booking controversial or opinionated guests like Gilbert Gottfried. Or to mend fences with Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell to book more mainstream celebrities.

By not taking sides in this debate, Stern comes across as a coward. Yes, he is a "comedian" doing a "morning radio show." But his opinions reach millions of fans, listeners, and politicians.

What does Howard's father, an Army veteran, think about a Nazi gaining the ear of the President? What does his mother, a champion of integration, think about a ban on immigrants from countries that have not produced any terrorist attacks on American soil?

With every new ridiculous executive order and edict, Trump brings this nation closer to becoming a banana republic. While intensely worried about being judged an illegitimate president, his every action makes that truth becomes more self-evident.

We need voices speaking out about what is happening. And Howard Stern's silence is deafening. And telling at the same time.