if you still need “proof” that trump is a white supremacist, you’re a f*cking racist

Last week, outspoken SportsCenter co-host Jemele Hill laid out the most basic of basic facts: Donald Trump is a white supremacist. Anyone who has been paying attention to anything for any of the last few months—to speak of his years of demonizing the Black and Brown Central Park Five who were falsely accused of rape even after their names were cleared, questioning Obama’s legitimacy as the first Black president and his anti-Black hiring practices—would know this.

But turns out her bosses over at ESPN aren’t a fan of fundamental truths, condemning her words as “inappropriate,” and allegedly trying to replace her with other Black anchors (who, in solidarity, refused to take her spot).

Apparently, this aversion to facts when it comes to Donald Trump isn’t just limited to ESPN. There is actually a significant demographic that refuses to believe a president who calls Mexican immigrants rapists and claims there are “both sides” to blame when white supremacists murder people is one himself.

MacArthur Genius Grant award-winning author Ta-nehisi Coates addressed these people on a recent episode of MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes”: “I think if you own a business that attempts to keep black people from renting from you,” Coates explained, “if you are reported to say that you don’t want black people counting your money; if you say — and not even reported, just come out and say — that someone can’t judge your case because they are Mexican; if your response to the first black president is that they weren’t born in this country, despite all proof; if you say they weren’t smart enough to go to Harvard Law School, and demand to see their grades; if that’s the essence of your entire political identity you might be a white supremacist, it’s just possible.”

But this whole explanation misses the point. We are way beyond whether or not Trump “might be a white supremacist.”

Trying to get people whose fundamental position is rooted in the refusal or reality not to refuse reality is futile.

Anyone who still needs convincing that Trump is a white supremacist is one themselves. It’s well past time to stop pretending otherwise.