Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, once a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, said the final straw which turned him against the president was when Trump attacked four Democratic Congresswomen on Twitter, with what he described as “un-American” and “racist nativist language”.
In July this year, Trump tweeted that Democratic congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley “who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world [if they even have a functioning government at all]” should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”.
….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
The controversial comments were deemed racist by many observers and critics as all but Omar, a Somali refugee, were born in the United States.
For Scaramucci, a 55 year-old Italian-American from New York who served as part of Trump’s transition team but was fired from his post as White House communications director in July 2017 after just 11 days, this was the final straw which made him realise Trump is not fit to be President of the United States.
“When he is saying ‘go back to the country that you came from’ that’s classically un-American language. That’s also classically American racist nativist language. You can’t do that in the Office of the President. So I said: ‘Look, I’m sorry. I want to be supportive of the president but my grandmother was told to go back to the country that she came from. I don’t think it’s an appropriate way to speak as the American leader’.”
Twitter feud
Of course, Trump was not one to take Scaramucci’s criticism lying down and a Twitter feud quickly erupted between the two former allies, with the president getting personal and referencing Scaramucci’s impending divorce.
“He rebuked me and went after me on Twitter. But, you know, you understand once he went after my wife, that’s off the line of the spectrum. You want to attack me, I’m a public figure, no problem, but don’t go after my wife.”
Scaramucci and his wife have resolved their differences and called off their divorce proceedings but his feeling about Trump only hardened, with the former White House staffer drawing parallels with German leader Adolf Hitler.
“I think it’s important to understand that he represents a danger to global society and to the United States… In representative democracies one of the things that could really hurt a democracy is demagoguery.”
Demagoguery is described as political activity that seeks support by appealing to the prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
“Listen, I am not comparing them, but on January 30th 1933 Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany,” Scaramucci said, emphasising the word elected.
“Let’s not forget that, it wasn’t like he seized power in 33. He didn’t take on autocratic control until four or five years later. So, again, I’m not comparing it to them, and this is a different and arguably stronger system than Germany had gone on after the First World War, but you can’t really survive demagoguery for a long period of time in representative democracies and he represents that.”
Read the full interview with Anthony Scaramucci in this week’s issue of Arabian Business.
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