Trump exploiting grievances of white Americans: Journalist

Presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is exploiting the grievances of white Americans to benefit his election campaign, an American journalist and political analyst says.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday, after Mitt Romney said if Trump is elected president, he could legitimize racism and bigotry and change the moral fabric of American society.

“I don't want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following,” said Romney, the Republican Party's 2012 nominee for US president.

Romney, who has openly opposed Trump's candidacy, is actively seeking to recruit an independent, third-party challenger to Trump.

“Donald Trump is using racism -- a lot of it emanates from the frustration of white Americans, particularly of white males in the middle age and elder age groups that is based on the economic crisis inside the United States,” said Azikiwe.

“A recent study has indicated that numerous white males are being deprived of healthcare, competent employment, and housing; therefore rather than looking at Wall Street or looking at the Pentagon, for their acceptance in regard to predatory lending, the government bailing out the banks, and also the wars they have been waging over the last 25 years in the Middle East and Africa,” he stated.

“Instead of looking in that direction and manning its own resources to utilize and improve the conditions of working and middle class people inside the United States, they are scapegoating the African American, Latino and other groups inside the United States who in fact are deprived and oppressed,” the analyst added.

Trump, a billionaire businessman from New York, has propelled himself as the presumptive Republican nominee by framing himself as an anti-establishment outsider.

However, his campaign has been defined by controversy from the beginning, including disparaging remarks about women, Mexican immigrants and Muslims.

Trump said in a recent interview that US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the son of Mexican immigrants, was biased against him in lawsuits involving fraud allegations against Trump University, the billionaire’s real estate training school.

Trump claimed that the judge’s Mexican heritage had influenced his opinion because of the presumptive Republican nominee’s plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border after winning the presidential elections.

Azikiwe said “this is a political game that has been played by Trump, and elements within the Republican Party are saying, for example the House Speaker Ryan, that Trump made racist statements regard to a Mexican jurist, then they should go to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and demand that he be denied nomination.”

“How can you openly admit that people made racist statements and then at the same time turn around and say that you support them who represent your party in a national election?  It shows that the Republican Party is thoroughly racist. It also shows that the Democratic Party is not utilizing this open and blatant racism to the detriment of the Republican Party,” he concluded.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk