It's Even Worse Than You Think

by David Cay Johnston

  Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate . . . on both sides! He implied the antifa are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also, refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him.

  No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.

  The next day the Daily Stormer “Summer of Hate edition” described the murder victim as a “fat, childless, 32-year-old slut.” Heather Heyer should have been killed, the article argued: “Most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness. A 32-year-old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value.”

  Trump’s treating anyone who marched with the Nazis and their ilk as moral equals of those who oppose hatred was more than many leading Republicans could bear. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell spoke out. They recognized the lasting damage these remarks could do to the Republican Party, which has worked ever since Nixon to persuade people that GOP policies that hurt nonwhite Americans aren’t racist but instead are grounded in Constitutional principles and pro-growth economics.

  From Kennebunkport, former presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush released a clear statement that gave no quarter to the racists, highlighting the difference between Trump and them:

  America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms. As we pray for Charlottesville, we are reminded of the fundamental truths recorded by that city’s most prominent citizen in the Declaration of Independence: we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. We know these truths to be everlasting because we have seen the decency and greatness of our country.

  The Democrats were less restrained. Representative Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, said “the president is not actually condemning this white nationalism, this terrorism.” Trump’s rhetoric encouraged the hatemongers, Gallego said, a view supported by what their websites were telling followers that day. “He should treat the alt-right movement and the neo-Nazi movement the way he treats any occasion where there is a Muslim terrorist attack.”

  In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the neo-Nazis and racists in Charlottesville with a moral clarity and force lacking in Trump. Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert called the white supremacists “evil” and “disgusting,” and said those who took part in “the right-wing extremist march were absolutely repulsive—naked racism, anti-Semitism and hate in their most evil form were on display.”

  * * *

  Trump’s dog-whistle support for racists and neo-Nazis has a long history.

  When Trump was divorcing his first wife, Ivana, he planted news stories—some ran as covers of Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post tabloid—that publicly humiliated the mother of his children. Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric became estranged from their father, as they wrote and talked about for years, until as adults they went on Daddy’s payroll and became his loyal aides.

  Ivana’s friends circulated a story she told them about a Trump Organization employee, John Walter. Each time he came into Trump’s office Walter would click his heels and say, “Heil Hitler!”

  Ivana also put into the public record in 1990 that Trump read now and then from a book of Hitler’s speeches, which he kept in a cabinet next to their bed. Anyone seeking power and wanting to know how to manipulate people, especially in crowds, would do well to study Hitler’s public addresses.

  Marie Brenner asked Trump about the book of Hitler speeches while writing a 1990 Vanity Fair profile of Trump. Trump said the book was Mein Kampf, a gift from businessman Martin Davis, who Trump said was a Jew. Davis confirmed the story, but with two significant changes. Davis was not Jewish and the book was My New Order, Hitler’s collected speeches, just as Ivana had told the story.

  When Brenner went back to Trump he told her, “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”

  The Nazi leader said in 1939 that he was aware that “I have no equal in the art of swaying the masses.” Hitler also said, “Everything I have accomplished I owe to persuasion” and that the key to his success was constant repetition, a principle understood by anyone who has seen television commercials repeated so often they can quote them from memory.

  That Trump lumps together many groups and labels them “enemy” fits with a 1925 Munich speech in which Hitler discussed the inability of the masses to focus when presented with multiple enemies. “It is part of the genius of a great leader to make adversaries of different fields appear is always belonging to one category.”

  Trump bundles together Mexicans, Muslims, journalists, climate change scientists, “elites,” and the counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville as the enemy of what in his inaugural address he called “a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

  During his campaign, Trump retweeted racist tweets, including from believers in “white genocide.” That white Americans are the target of genocide is a delusional notion that American Nazis promote as an article of racist faith. Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin in August 2017 sent a message to racists and American Nazis about how Trump is with them on white genocide:

  Our Glorious Leader and ULTIMATE SAVIOR has gone full-wink-wink-wink to his most aggressive supporters after having been attacked for retweeting a White Genocide account a few days ago, Trump went on to retweet two more White Genocide accounts, back to back. . . . Whereas the odd White genocide tweet could be a random occurrence, it isn’t statistically possible that two of them back to back could be a random occurrence. . . . Today in America the air is cold and it tastes like victory.

  Rocky Suhayda, chairman of the American Nazi Party, endorsed Trump a few months before the election. Suhayda called blacks savages, saying, “If Trump does win, okay, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that” if they just shift their rhetoric from negative to positive. “It has to be pro-white . . . we have to keep our eyes on the prize.” Trump declined to reject the endorsements of various racists and Nazis. He even claimed he was unaware of David Duke, the former KKK leader and Senate candidate from Louisiana. Trump said on CNN four times within a matter of seconds that he didn’t know who David Duke was:

  Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, okay? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about, people that I know nothing about. I don’t know any—honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.

  And yet Trump, who claimed during the campaign that he possesses “the world’s greatest memory,” had told the New York Daily News in 2000 that he was quitting the fringe Reform Party because it “would require associating with David Duke.”

  Trump’s sympathy for the Charlottesville racists was more than Kenneth C. Frazier, CEO of the drug company Merck, could take. He resigned from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council, a ceremonial group, to protest Trump’s Charlottesville statements. The Nazi news site then called Frazier a “black bastard” and “dumb black guy” unqualified for his job.

  Trump tweeted, “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

  Disney CEO Bob Iger and Tesla founder Elon Musk and others also quit the council. All of them are white. None was subjected to a Trumpian attack tweet.

  * * *

 
I. Antifa is shorthand for antifacists and used by the neo-Nazis to describe the counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville.

  Immigration

  Protecting American jobs by preventing foreigners from taking them was a major theme throughout the Trump campaign. Soon after Trump won the Republican nomination, questions began to emerge about whether Melania Trump was among those people who had worked illegally in the United States. If she had, and her husband’s proposed policies had been in effect, she would have been a high-priority target for arrest and deportation to Slovenia.

  How Trump handled this potential crisis proved how clever he is at distorting an argument to avoid an issue. And it would show how what Trump told voters on immigration and jobs was mostly talk, not the promised action to make sure foreigners did not, legally or illegally, take American jobs.

  Questions about whether Melania Knauss (sometimes spelled Knavs) worked illegally arose after Trump’s favorite tabloid, the New York Post, ran nude photos of her on its cover and inside for two days, using stars to cover strategic spots. The photos included lesbian poses. That Trump or someone acting with his approval supplied the photos became clear when the freshly nominated Republican candidate’s campaign was asked about them.

  Instead of denouncing the newspaper, a spokesman called the photos art, though the setting—a mattress with a sheet, the bed pressed against a bare wall and harsh lighting—was not up to the standards of either Playboy or the late art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

  As for his wife’s immigrant status, Trump spoke up in August 2016 using his universal “they” to cover anyone in journalism.

  “They said, ‘Melania Trump may have come into our country illegally’ and ‘how would that be for Donald Trump?’ Here’s the only problem, she came in totally legally,” he said, indicating they had spoken privately about whether to respond. “I said to her: ‘No no, let it simmer for a little while. Let them go wild, let it simmer, and then let’s have a little news conference.’ ”

  Speaking in North Carolina, Trump said his wife entered the United States legally. “Let me tell you one thing. She has got it so documented, so she’s going to have a little news conference over the next couple of weeks. That’s good. I love it. I love it.”

  There was never such a news conference. No documents were provided, either.

  That allowed Trump to get away with diverting the issue to one not raised. The issue was whether Melania had worked in the United States illegally. But just as with his tax returns, Trump promised but failed to deliver.

  Months later, diligent reporters from the Associated Press uncovered business records from Metropolitan International Management, which had Melania’s contract. It had later folded. The records showed that Melania Knauss had indeed worked illegally in the United States in 1995. She took at least ten modeling jobs that in all paid more than $20,000. She was an independent contractor, but the modeling agency gave her a pager, putting her at management’s beck and call, and loaned her money, the business records showed.

  Knauss turned twenty-five that year, making her old to be a fashion or swimsuit model. That may explain why she got so little work at modest pay and did nude photos with another woman.

  Fashion shows and magazines prefer teenage girls. Until New York State passed a law in 2014 making models seventeen and younger subject to rules governing child actors the majority of fashion models were legally children, many only fourteen years old, according to the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which urged the legislation.

  As a candidate, Trump promised to round up every one of the estimated 11 million people living in the United States without the government’s permission, people some call undocumenteds and others call illegals. He was especially vocal about deporting those with jobs. Any noncitizen without a Green Card, shorthand for federal government permission to work, steals a job from an Americans and should be deported, Trump said over and over.

  But while Trump railed against illegal work, his actions as a business owner were quite different, demonstrating a basic Trumpian philosophy—there are two standards. One is for the Trumps and anyone they like. It is soft and easy. The other is harsh. It’s for everyone not aligned with the Trumps, especially those the president dislikes, most especially Mexicans and Muslims.

  On the campaign trail, Donald Trump often railed against work visa programs allowing foreigners to enter the country and work for periods from ninety days up to ten years.

  Candidate Trump said in a written statement that he was “totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”

  H-1B is one of several programs that allowed American companies to use foreign workers. All of them had rules that made the workers temporary guests. To critics, especially software code writers, it was a program to push down wages.

  Half of the foreign workers were hired by computer industry companies, many in Silicon Valley. And half of those workers earned $88,000 or less. Whether these guest workers were paid less than Americans, and thus depressed the wages of Americans, is hotly debated in Silicon Valley. The issue is further complicated by the fact that software coding could be done in a remote location, say India, where a large share of the work-visa hires come from. End the visa program and instead of hiring more American programmers, Silicon Valley might just outsource much of the work from Cupertino and Redwood City to Bangalore and Hyderabad.

  The justification for high-tech guest workers is that there are not enough Americans with the skills to do the work. If that is so, then slowly, steadily shrinking the number of visas should result in rising wages, which would attract more Americans and prompt them to invest in skills worthy of higher pay. Continuing the program at roughly the same level only perpetuates any shortage of native workers and puts downward pressure on American wages.

  In April 2017 Trump told an audience in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that he was about to take bold action on foreign guest workers. He promised to end the “theft of American prosperity.” Foreign worker visas “should never, ever be used to replace American workers,” he said.

  But the executive order he signed was not bold, as Trump said, but tepid. It simply directed four cabinet agencies to “suggest reforms” with no deadline for submitting their ideas.

  There are also work visas for low-skilled workers like the staff at Mar-a-Lago, which had for years relied on the very workers Trump wanted kept out—foreigners. Trump said during one of the Republican primary debates that Mar-a-Lago, like other local seasonal resort properties, had no choice but to import workers. “People don’t want a short-term job,” he said. “So, we will bring people in, and we will send the people out. All done legally.”

  Senator Marco Rubio of Florida broke in. “That’s not accurate,” he said, because at least three hundred Americans who sought work at Mar-a-Lago were not hired. That, Rubio said, helped Trump push down wages, the very issue Trump complained was caused by too many foreign workers in America.

  “When you bring someone in on one of these visas they can’t go work for anybody else,” Rubio noted. “They either work for you or they have to go back home. You basically have them captive, so you don’t have to worry about competing for higher wages with another hotel down the street. And, that’s why you bring workers from abroad.”

  Trump kept interrupting Rubio, making it difficult for those watching to understand the debate unless they read the transcript later.

  The public record showed that hundreds of local residents did want jobs but were not hired.

  In July 2017 the Trump administration decided to let in more foreign workers, not exactly what Trump promised on inauguration day when he said every decision would be made to promote Ameri
can jobs and buy American.

  American “businesses in danger of suffering irreparable harm due to a lack of available temporary nonagricultural workers” would be able to hire an additional 15,000 foreigners in temporary low-skill, low-paid jobs. That would increase supply by more than 40 percent for the second half of the year.

  This was a prime example of Trump not walking his campaign talk in office, but also of driving down wages, just as Rubio had said was Trump’s goal.

  In Palm Beach, for example, hundreds of people were willing to work at the wages offered by Mar-a-Lago, roughly $10 to $13 an hour, for the 2016–17 season.

  Locally four people wanted work for every low-skill resort job offered. That means there was no shortage of local labor for the seasonal positions. With so many workers available, hiring locals might not even put upward pressure on wages. When there is so much more demand for work than employers could supply, employers can offer less pay and still recruit people.

  But workers who come from overseas on visas are subject to more control. Their employer can arrange pay that depends on their staying until the last day of the season and hold back part of their pay through “bemusing” arrangements. That means anyone who gets out of line, anyone who gets fired, gets shorted on his or her pay and sent home early.

  President Trump declared July 24 the start of Made in America Week. Trump said he would be “recognizing the vital contributions of American workers and job creators to our Nation’s prosperity.”

  The same week a tiny classified ad ran twice in the back pages of The Palm Beach Post. It offered work for “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club.” The jobs paid wages only—“No tips.”

  The ads did not identify the employer, but the fax was a Mar-a-Lago number.

  A week earlier, Mar-a-Lago had applied to the Labor Department—run by a Trump appointee—for visas to import thirty-five people to wait on tables, twenty cooks, and fifteen chambermaids. All it needed to do was show that it offered work and not enough people showed up to take the jobs. That was easily accomplished. Run a tiny ad with few details. Tell locals to apply via fax, a technology few people seeking such low-paid seasonal work were likely to own. People could mail a letter but letters can get lost or take time being delivered.