Historians Call Trump’s ‘Sh*thole’ Comment "The Most Openly Racist by a President in Decades"

As outrage continues to pour in over President Donald Trump calling Haiti, El Salvador, and several African countries “shithole countries,” a new dialogue is being created about how to frame Trump within the context of his predecessors. Is Trump really more openly racist than recent former presidents? Short answer: Yes.

“The point is that since the New Deal, since the beginnings of modern civil rights era, no president has ever said anything publicly as explicitly racist as what we’ve heard from President Trump,” historian and emeritus of Princeton University Daniel Rodgers told Vice News.

When analyzing Trump’s comments, Rice University professor of presidential history Douglas Brinkley also referenced Woodrow Wilson—who made D.W. Giffith’s The Birth of  Nation, a romanticized tale of the Klu Klux Klan, the first film ever shown inside the White House.

“Trump is the most overtly racist president since Woodrow Wilson,” Brinkley told Vice News. “All presidents have tried to not flash their bigot card as clearly as Trump does.”

Of course, Trump isn't known as the White House's first racist; what sets him apart is how he's made bigotry the "modus operandi of his campaign," as Brinkley puts it. Trump is preceded by Lyndon B. Johnson—a president who was known for dropping an N-bomb with the hard R inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“When I appoint a nigger to the bench, I want everybody to know he’s a nigger,” Johnson infamously said about nominating Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. ...