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Letter: American racists were ripe for exploitation by Russia

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais | The Associated Press) Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump give a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, July 16, 2018.

President Donald Trump challenged President Barack Obama’s birth certificate to identify the extent to which voters would ignore facts to feed their own prejudices.

This is a nuanced understanding of the human psyche, most likely developed by the KGB and given to Trump by Vladimir Putin. Trump is too clueless to have seized on this approach himself.

The relentless investigation of Russian malfeasance by the press ignores the role played by the U.S. voters who choose to ignore facts in favor of their racial prejudice, synonymous with the name “Obama.”

The campaign, too, used chain emails denigrating Obama, and the Republicans I challenged tried to dismiss my objections as my not having a sense of humor, so as to hide the pernicious nature of the email content.

Even today, Trump will use the name of Obama whenever he needs a “dog whistle” to lead his minions dedicated to white supremacy!

Russia’s efforts would be ineffectual were it not for America’s racial prejudice, which is not nearly as subtle today as that portrayed in “A Gentlemen’s Agreement” in 1947 starring Gregory Peck.

Raymond Ridge, Murray

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