From the New York Times oped page:

The State of the (White Nationalist) Union

Kashana Cauley JAN. 31, 2018

Before last night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump invited news correspondents to the White House, where he told them, “I would like to see the country united.” But hours later, he gave a speech meant to rally only part of the country.

He complimented coal and welding in a love letter to the white working classes of Appalachia and the Midwest. By admonishing people who don’t stand for the national anthem, he reminded us that as president, he has picked fights with black N.F.L. players protesting police brutality. He repeatedly disparaged nonwhite people during his speech.

And who can forget Trump racistically getting into a spat with Basketball Dad LaVar Ball? How racist do you have to be not to love LaVar Ball?

Instead of unifying the country, President Trump made it clear, yet again, that he supports only white Americans — to hell with everyone else.

The contrast between President Trump and President Barack Obama couldn’t be more apparent. President Obama understood that our country’s diversity was one of its greatest strengths and painted an inclusive picture of how America could move forward. “Our unique strengths as a nation — our optimism and work ethic, our spirit of discovery and innovation, our diversity and commitment to the rule of law,” he said in 2016, in his last State of the Union address. “These things give us everything we need to ensure prosperity and security for generations to come.”

But President Trump wants to divide the country between the white Americans he prizes and their purported foes…

The historic lows in African-American and Latino unemployment that he mentioned last night are partly a direct result of the productivity of hundreds of thousands of workers he wishes to deport.

President Trump made tokens of his minority guests, which underscored the point that he doesn’t quite consider nonwhite people to be on a par with white Americans. Corey Adams, a black welder, was brought out as cover for the tax cut his employers at Staub Manufacturing Solutions in Dayton, Ohio, received under the Republicans’ tax plan. …

President Trump also introduced us to Celestino Martinez, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who led an operation on Long Island to track down gang members, including members of MS-13. Mr. Trump introduced Mr. Martinez right after saying, “Americans are dreamers, too,” to insult recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and illustrate that his American dream, instead of meaning the freedom to seek refuge on our shores and work toward a satisfying future, is based on arresting gang members. To make a Latino the face of ICE is a wink to Mr. Trump’s base. It also says that Latinos can be trusted to follow the Trump agenda and throw people who look like them out of the country if they need to.

The most egregious case of tokenism was that of Evelyn Rodriguez and Freddy Cuevas, a couple whose daughter, Kayla Cuevas, was killed by MS-13 gang members on Long Island in 2016. …

President Trump’s message is clear: Acceptable minorities work as ICE agents, help their employers take advantage of tax breaks and serve as visible reminders that people are killed by immigrants and foreigners.

This fatalist, white nationalist view of the world is a reminder that if last night was about unity, Mr. Trump cares to unite only white Americans.

What’s the difference between “white nationalist” and “white supremacist?” When somebody writing for the New York Times is working herself into an aneurysm over Trump, how does she decide whether he’s a “white nationalist” or a “white supremacist?”

[Comment at Unz.com]