Trump's Racism and the Christian's Complicity

Donald J. Trump, our nation's President, is a racist.  Here is a reminder of the obvious evidence (much of which is a summary from a New York Times article):

1. His real-estate company tried to avoid renting apartments to African-Americans in the 1970s.
2. In 1989, he publicly argued for the death penalty for the Central Park 5.  Moreover, in 2019, more than 15 years after DNA tests cleared all 5 from all responsibility, he has continued to argue that they are guilty.
3. He was a public leader in the Birtherism movement against black President Barack Obama, a movement that has been clearly debunked as based on lies time and again.
4. In his 2016 presidential campaign, he stated that  Mexicans are criminals, drug-lords, and rapists, although he did, as an afterthought, note that "some … are good people."
5. In 2015, he called for a complete shutdown of all Muslims' entering the United States, including American citizens who were abroad at the time.
6. He believed that a judge who was in charge of a case involving Trump University could not be objective because of his Mexican heritage.
7. In 2017, he said that "15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti 'all have AIDS' and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would 'never go back to their huts' in Africa."
8. He has stated publicly that he wants more immigration from Norway (white) and less immigration from Haiti (black).
9. He called African countries "shithole nations."
10. With literally no evidence at all (he even admitted as such), he claimed that the caravans coming up from Central America contained "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners," including a myriad of MS-13 gang members.
11. He has re-tweeted white nationalists and neo-Nazis time and again unapologetically.
12. He has refused to condemn the white nationalists gathering in Charlottesville, VA, even going so far as to call some of them "very fine people."
13. Neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer has stated that the Charlottesville rally never would have happened "without Trump."
14. He endorsed Roy Moore in Alabama, a known racist himself.
15. He has endlessly mocked Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas."
16. In April of 2019, Trump focused his tweeting on the burning of the Notre Dame cathedral but tweeted nothing about the burning of 3 black churches in Louisiana in 10 days. 
17. He has focused his criticism and public attacks heavily on the role of Muslims in domestic terrorism yet never calls out the role of the far-right-leaning white male. 
18. And, of course, in his most recent tweet directed towards 4 American citizens, all Congresswomen of color, he told them to "go back … from which they came."  He, then, basked in his crowd's "Send her back" chants for 12-13 seconds and has called those people chanting those abominable words "incredible patriots." 

Now, a few points about this list, and then my point: First, this is not an exhaustive list, a sad fact in and of itself.  Second, IF any one (maybe two) of these incidents had occurred in an isolated fashion and IF Trump had recognized his error and apologized sincerely and publicly, then his label as a "racist" would probably be unwarranted; we all make mistakes.  However, neither of those conditionals has happened, and this is quite an extensive, public list, which adds great credibility to understanding him as a racist, clear and simple.

And finally, my point: Where has the evangelical right's public, vociferous, unending outcry against this man's blatant racism been?  Where has been Franklin Graham's and Pat Robertson's and Tony Perkins's righteous condemnation of this leader while he consistently spews this divisive hatred towards non-whites?  Where are the socially conscious sermons from mega-church leaders on Sundays denouncing, in no uncertain terms, this despicable rhetoric and these immoral actions?   

<Crickets>

Martin Luther King, Jr., once stated that "silence is betrayal."  And right now, any Christian who is silent in the face of Trump's shameless racism is betraying the very tenets of Christ on which s/he is supposed to stand.  And maybe worse, any Republican Christian who refuses to speak out against this racist Republican leader is showing the world that his/her political affiliation is much more important than his/her spiritual devotion.

WWJD?  Not stay silent.