A reader of High Plains Blogger questioned an assertion I made about what I perceive to be Donald J. Trump’s racist tendencies.

This reader said there is “no evidence” of racist intent by the president of the United States.

Hmm. Let’s look at what I consider to be “evidence” of such malevolence from Trump.

• Starting in 2011, Trump began questioning the birth of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He continued the lie even after saying that the president “was born in the United States.”
• Earlier, he actually questioned whether Obama, then a U.S. senator, qualified academically for entrance into Columbia University and Harvard Law. Obama, of course, is the first African-American ever elected to the presidency.
• Trump’s real estate properties have been subject to lawsuits from residents who have contended racial bias against them.
• In 2017, Trump attached moral equivalence between the white supremacists/Nazis/Klansmen and those who protested against them in Charlottesville, Va. He said there were “fine people … on both sides” of the dispute.
• He has called U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a black member of Congress from California, a “low IQ person.”
• He has called African-American football players “sons of bit****” because they kneel during the playing of the National Anthem at football games. He accuses them of disrespecting the military and the flag while they are protesting police policies against black citizens.
• He calls Don Lemon, the CNN news anchor, “the dumbest man on television.” Lemon also is black.
• He disparages pro basketball superstar LeBron James’s intelligence as well — after James announces the opening of a school in his hometown for at-risk children. LeBron James also is African-American.

There is “evidence,” therefore, of the president’s racist motivations.

It is disgusting and disgraceful on its face. Does he question the intelligence of white opponents? Why would he question the academic credentials of a future black politician who, by the way, was elected president of the Harvard Law Review while he was studying for his law degree?

And how does Donald Trump earn such full-throated praise in the aftermath of his hideous Charlottesville comments from the likes of Ku Klux Klan grand dragon David Duke?

All of this also provides ample evidence that the president is a racist. Pure and simple.