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  "path": "/2026/02/action-trumps-intent-does-it-matter-if.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-15T12:30:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://endrtimes.blogspot.com",
  "tags": [
    "Miguel A. De La Torre",
    "Opinion",
    "I don’t have a racist bone in my body!",
    "garbage",
    "Justice Department ends",
    "Interior Department",
    "State Department",
    "Department of Health and Human Services",
    "civilizational erasure",
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  "textContent": "\nby Miguel A. De La Torre | Jan 12, 2026 | Opinion\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nStock Photo Illustration (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wiki Commons/https://tinyurl.com/3et39rm6)\n\nI have heard many dismiss President Donald Trump as a racist. In response, he has claimed, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body!”\n\nWhy shouldn’t I take him at his word? After all, I do not know what is in his heart. Only God does.\n\nHence, I lack the hubris to ascertain with any certainty if he is, indeed, a racist. Still, I wonder, can a tree ever be known by its fruit? Is racism what racism does?\n\nTrump’s versatility, his hollow patriotism, and the genuine power of simplistic, nonsensical words invigorate those who are mostly deficient in basic qualities associated with morality and decency.\n\nAlthough lacking an ethical compass, his skillful simoniacal trading of political influence, posts and pardons to enrich himself, and the teflonic ease with which he dispenses verifiable seditious accusations, establish the foundation of his appeal. His obstinate usage of appointed sycophants to bring the full weight of the government against those who contest his self-serving trajectory, along with his total lack of scruples to even hide his public shame, deepens that pull. Together, these forces conspire to lure cultish MAGA followers to forgive him of all guilt, seeing in this self-exultant political sinner their atonement for their own unrestrained odium for all that falls short of the white ideal.\n\nIn this country, where minoritized communities have always been familiar with the aggression of white supremacy, Trump callously pursues people of color as if on steroids. He does so without the façade of charity, heartlessly dismantling with implacable passion any governmental design established to provide the minimum relief and protection from the onslaught of normalized and legitimized white affirmative action. His abnormal, aggressive temperament dazzles followers while seducing foes to the futility of resistance.\n\nHe may very well not be a racist, but instead a political animal playing to the worst impulses of the U.S. psyche. Nevertheless, there is no denying he has done and said racist things.\n\nIn fact, his political success is dependent on racism and ethnic discrimination. It flows like an everlasting stream, dooming any domestic hope of fostering a more perfect union, even while spouting high-sounding, empty patriotic rhetoric.\n\n\n\n\n\nSo, is he a racist?\n\nWhen Trump refers to all members of a particular ethnic group as “garbage,” then maybe Trump is a racist.\n\nWhen his Justice Department ends “disparate impact analysis,” a decades-old civil rights law allowing statistical disparities to prove the existence of racial discrimination, then maybe Trump is a racist.\n\nWhen Trump’s Interior Department, following his executive order to remove all items promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, removed from Margraten Cemetery displays highlighting Black soldiers’ contributions to liberating the Netherlands during World War II, it marked a clear pattern. That same administration removed articles from the Arlington Cemetery website featuring Latine and Black service members who paid the ultimate price and flagged for removal a slavery memorial from Independence Mall in Philadelphia. Taken together, these actions suggest that Trump might be a racist.\n\nWhen his State Department, in an effort to stamp out diversity, returns to using the traditional Times New Roman typeface rather than the recently adopted Calibri type designed to improve accessibility to readers with disabilities, then maybe Trump is a racist.\n\nWhen Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services instructs Head Start early childhood program funding applicants not to use words like “accessible,” “belong,” “Black,” “minority,” “trauma,” “tribal,” etc., then maybe Trump is a racist.\n\nWhen Trump warns Europe that due to migration, they are endangered of “civilizational erasure” by losing white homogeneity, then Trump might be a racist.\n\nWhen Trump commits to supporting white supremacist far-right hate political groups in Europe, then he might be a racist.\n\nWhen Trump seeks to make “remigration” or “reverse migration” federal policy, a concept which means ethnically cleansing or forcibly deporting everyone who is not white from traditionally white nations, then Trump might be a racist.\n\nWhen Trump opens the doors for white Afrikaners, under the preposterous pretense of them suffering genocide at the hands of Blacks, and uses this falsehood to punish South Africa, then maybe Trump is a racist.\n\nWhen hate groups like the Proud Boys, the Aryan Freedom Network, and other neo-Nazi U.S. groups praise Trump and yet, Trump refuses to reject their endorsement or disavow their race-based policies, then Trump might be a racist.\n\nWhen he takes pride in the fact that, since the start of his second term, of the more than 600,000 deported, 70% were among the “worst of the worst” criminals, the claim initially appears authoritative. Only later does it emerge that only about 7% of those booked by ICE had a serious or violent conviction, yet almost all were nonwhite. Taken together, these facts suggest maybe Trump might be a racist.\n\nAlmost all these inanities occurred in the last 30 days of 2025, not over decades of public life! Flooding the zone with so much idiocy makes coordinating resistance challenging.\n\nTrump may very well be accurate when passionately exclaiming that he does not have a racist bone in his body. But in the final analysis, what does it really matter if he is or isn’t a racist?\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSource\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**--- <>---**\n\n\n\n\n**P.S.**\n\n\n\n\n**Miguel A. De La Torre** (born 6 October 1958) is a professor of Social Ethics and Latino Studies at Iliff School of Theology, author, and an ordained Southern Baptist minister.[1]\n\nMiguel A. De La Torre\n\n\n\n\n\nDe La Torre in 2009\nBorn 6 October 1958 (age 67)[citation needed]\nHavana, Cuba\n\n\n**Alma mater** Temple University\n\n\n**Known for Work** analyzing social ethics and hispanic religiosity\n\n\n**Awards** \"Outstanding Hispanic Educator\" award by the Michigan Hispanic Legislative Caucus\n\"2016 Outstanding Faculty Award\" by University of Denver/Iliff Joint Doctoral Program\n\n\n**Scientific career**\n\n**\nFields** Social ethics, theology of liberation, Latinx religiosity, **Santería**\n\n**\nInstitutions** Iliff School of Theology\n\n\nBiography\n\nBorn in Cuba months before the Castro Revolution, De La Torre and his family migrated to the United States as refugees when he was an infant. For a while the U.S. government considered him and his family as \"illegal aliens\". On 6 June 1960, De La Torre received an order from Immigration and Naturalization Service to \"self-deport.\" He attended Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic elementary school in Queens, New York, and was baptized and confirmed by the Catholic Church. Simultaneously, his parents were priest/priestess of the religion **Santería**.[2] He refers to himself as a \"Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic child of **Elegúa**.\"[3]\n\nSource: **Wikipedia**\n\n",
  "title": "Action Trumps Intent: Does it Matter if the President is Racist?",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-15T12:30:00.117Z"
}