Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

I was appalled to read Glenn Thrush’s article in today’s NYTimes describing President Trump’s decision to “attack” fair housing regulations put in place by the Obama administration. The headline described it as a “Play for White Votes” but the subhead got it right: the flagging of his decision to “attack” fair housing is racist… period… end of report:

Proponents of the policy saw the move as an attempt to shore up the president’s sagging support among white suburban voters by stoking racial division.

The article describes the roots of the POTUS’ racist tendencies to his early adulthood when he and his father “vehemently fought a federal fair housing lawsuit accusing his father Fred Trump’s rental developments in boroughs outside Manhattan of discriminating against Black applicants.” The article also inferred that his “attack” was wholly unnecessary since the administration’s policy from the outset was to block any enforcement of the regulations Obama administration put in place. Mr. Thrush writes:

By 2018, Mr. Carson (HUD Secretary), a free-market conservative and the only Black person in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, delayed enactment of the regulation and signaled his intention to eliminate it altogether, part of a larger strategy of slow-walking fair housing investigations and marginalizing department officials who aggressively pursued cases.

Anyone who thought Mr. Trump was truthful has been disabused of that notion over the past three years as the number of outright lies has increased daily. Anyone who thought Mr. Trump was NOT a racist must surely be disabused of that notion by now. In Mr. Trump’s worldview, “Making America Great” means keeping blacks out of the suburbs. That is not greatness in my view. I hope it is a definition of “greatness” that voters will reject now that it is clear what it means.