Many of my Trump-supporting friends get mad at me when I talk about Trump as a race-baiter. But his comments about poisoning the blood illustrate my point. Look, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt the first time he said it. I was willing to believe that it was a racially insensitive comment that he did not know, or care, about the racist overtones of it.
But after being told and criticized for those racist overtones Trump simply doubled down and kept using the comment. He knew it had racist overtones. He just did not care about them. He knew that his audience was eating it up and he did not want to let them down.
This I what I mean by race-baiting. Is Trump an actual racist? I do not know. My guess is probably not in the traditional way that word is used. But he is willing to traffic in language with racist overtones if he gets a few more votes. That is race-baiting.
Some people may think that I am letting Trump off the hook by not calling him a racist but discussing it as race-baiting. But first, I have to be honest and the evidence of his race-baiting is clear whereas I do not know what is in his heart. But also I am not letting him off the hook. In my opinion, his race race-baiting is intentional whereas many people who are racist are doing it out of ignorance. Thus I see Trump more culpable because he engages in race-baiting than I would if I just thought he was a racist.