Trump Quotes by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Donald Trump did not appear by magic.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“It is insufficient to state the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Donald Trump begins his political career in birtherism. That idea is connected to a very, very old notion that African-Americans are not…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that's a statement.

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

The symbolic power of Barack Obama's presidency - that whiteness was no longer strong enough to prevent peons taking up residence in…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

That's not an accident that Donald Trump didn't begin with, say, trade or jobs or anything, that he actually began by otherizing…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Throughout his eight years in office, Barack Obama endured a campaign of illegitimacy waged either by pluralities or majorities of the Republican…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Like a lot of people, I'm very, very concerned about Senator Clinton's record. I'm very, very concerned about where her positions were…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I don't know how you bridge that contradiction, but I felt that Barack Obama was sincere. It didn't feel like a line…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

It was a week after Donald Trump had won. And initially he was still optimistic. He felt that things would be OK…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Pointing to citizens who voted for both Obama and Trump does not disprove racism; it evinces it. To secure the White House,…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“The fact of Barack Obama, of Michelle Obama, changed our lives. Their very existence opened a market. It is important to say…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

You had eight years before President Trump, a situation where the opposition party basically ran in opposition to the president on a…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Obama was born into a country where laws barring his very conception—let alone his ascendancy to the presidency—had long stood in force.…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“It is utterly impossible to conjure a black facsimile of Donald Trump—to imagine Obama, say, implicating an opponent’s father in the assassination…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“The focus on one sector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“But what I remember most is the sense of impossibility with which Obama regarded the Trump presidency. I confess to basically feeling…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“The irony of Barack Obama is this: He has become the most successful black politician in American history by avoiding the radioactive…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“In a democracy, so the saying goes, the people get the government they deserve. Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Obama himself, underestimating Trump and thus underestimating the power of whiteness, believed the Republican nominee too objectionable to actually win. In this…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“When presidential candidate Barack Obama presented himself to the black community, he was not to be believed. It strained credulity to think…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“It has been said that the first black presidency was mostly “symbolic,” a dismissal that deeply underestimates the power of symbols. Symbols…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I think there's a sort of, you know, very thin way of reading this that says, well, Barack Obama is biracial thus…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Every Trump voter is certainly not a white supremacist, just as every white person in the Jim Crow South was not a…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Americans, too belong to a class—one responsible for and intrinsically tied to a history of torture, bombings, and coups d’état carried out…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn't mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Whatever Obama’s other triumphs, arguably his greatest has been an expansion of the black imagination to encompass this: the idea that a…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

Obama's presence opened a new field for writers, and what began as curiosity about the man himself eventually expanded into curiosity about…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

I think Barack Obama was born into a home not just to a white woman and white grandparents, but a white woman…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

“I have often wondered how I missed the coming tragedy. It is not so much that I should have predicted that Americans…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates