Well, he didn’t say this in so many words, but if you look at his history of comments on the matter, that’s the narrative.
The latest is Trump bashing Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge presiding over two class-action suits against Trump University.
From the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
Mr. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association. Mr. Trump said the background of the judge, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, was relevant because of his campaign stance against illegal immigration and his pledge to seal the southern U.S. border. “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Mr. Trump said.
Get that? Curiel is hostile toward Trump because he’s Hispanic and proud of it.
Let’s not overlook the unprecedented event of presidential nominee of a major political party to be attacking a member of the federal judiciary. That’s horrible even without the racial angle.
Now Trump claims Judge Curiel cannot carry out his duties as judge because his parents were born in Mexico. Let’s also consider this irony: Judge Curiel’s father arrived in the United States before Trump’s mother. This claim suggests that Mexican-Americans have inherently divided loyalties and that it is obvious on its face that any Hispanic in the United States would be hostile to Donald Trump. And, by extension, to all white people. That’s the implication isn’t it?
Trump’s campaign has been driven by building white backlash resentment against non-whites – mainly Hispanics and principally Mexican immigrants. It looks like he’s not going to scale back these attacks but instead double down on them: Those people are not us, they’re dangerous, they’re taking our stuff and pulling us down.
It’s going to be an ugly 5 months.