Trump's Racist Obsession with Asian Cars

Either Ronald Ebens, a foreman for Chrysler, or his stepson, Michael Nitz, a laid-off Chrysler worker, called Chin and his friends "Little fuckers," who were "The reason we're all laid off." Outside the bar, Chin called the white men "Chickenshit," and the two chased Chin-who they referred to as "The Chinaman"-with a baseball bat and beat him hard; he died of his injuries a few days later. Many such cases! But Vincent Chin's murder also had its roots in the racist culture of the time. Donald Trump, who first came to prominence in the 1980s, seems to be trying hard to single-handedly bring back that awful decade and the type of panicked, racist frenzy that killed Vincent Chin. Trump has been claiming-falsely-that Biden's electric vehicle policies will allow a flood of Chinese imports and put Americans out of work. Anti-Chinese rhetoric is bipartisan, and although Trump and Biden have real differences on electric vehicles, their specific policies on China have been remarkably similar. In late February, Biden announced that the Department of Commerce would "Conduct an investigation" into whether Chinese-made vehicles could be used for spying and sabotage-part of his promise to "Make sure the future of the auto industry will be made here in America with American workers." It's good to protect American workers and union jobs, but this administration always manages to frame that worthy goal in the most paranoid way possible. Violent rhetoric from politicians against specific minority groups, reinforced by real violence carried out at the grassroots, is a pattern with alarming historical precursors, whether in Nazi Germany or the antebellum American South.