Tense debate about race on CNN gives preview of what’s to come in 2016 election

In a preview of just how ugly a general election matchup between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could be, two CNN commentators got into a heated debate over race Tuesday night — with name-calling and accusations that went beyond the typical election analysis.

Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord and liberal commentator Van Jones, in turn, accused each other’s political parties of stoking racial tension to further their political ambitions.

The trouble started during the channel’s Super Tuesday coverage when conservative pundit S.E. Cupp accused Trump of putting forth “crazy, dog-whistle policy proposals” to whip up support among bigoted voters.

Lord, who served with the Reagan administration, said the Republican establishment’s view of civil rights is to “tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club” and that Trump is succeeding because he’s not going to patronize people.

Jones, a Democrat, joined the conversation to say that Trump has been “horribly offensive” throughout the race. In particular, he denounced Trump’s failure, which the candidate later blamed on a bad earpiece, to unequivocally reject white supremacist David Duke’s endorsement in a CNN interview on Sunday.

“He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people,” Jones said. “No. 1: When he is playing funny with the [Ku Klux] Klan, that is not cool. I know this man when he gets passionate about terrorism. … The Klan is a terrorist organization.”

CNN political contributors Jeffrey Lord, left, and Van Jones clash over the issue of race in politics on Tuesday. (Photo: CNN via YouTube)

“A leftist terrorist organization,” Lord chimed in.

At this point, Jones accused Lord of playing word games to divert attention from the fact that Trump has not denounced the Klan as forcefully as he has Islamic terrorist groups.

“What difference does it make if you call them leftists?” Jones said. “You can call them chipmunks! They killed people!”

Lord then accused Jones of ignoring the Democratic Party’s historical ties to the Klan and expressed his belief that dividing people by race has been — and still is — part of the progressive agenda.

“You don’t hide and say, ‘That’s not part of the base of the Democratic Party.’ They were the military arm, the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, according to historians,” Lord said. “For God’s sake, read your history!”

Jones conceded that the Democratic Party of the South in the 19th and early 20th centuries was racist and violent but said it has evolved into a far more inclusive and compassionate organization.

Jones delivers the keynote address at a tribute honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at the Wisconsin State Capitol in January 2015. (Photo: Wisconsin State Journal/John Hart)

Lord disagreed: “It is the Democratic Party of today! The Democratic Party of today divides by race!”

On Wednesday morning, Jones and Lord appeared on CNN again to flesh out their ideas and differences with cooler heads and lower voices.

“For African-Americans,” Jones said, “when we try to speak about the pain of the lynchings, we try to speak about the fear that we are having around every African-American dinner table, kitchen table about, ‘What does Trump mean?’ People thought, ‘Well, 50 years ago they were Democrats’ — to us it feels dismissive.”

Lord said he would like to focus on today as well but wanted to provide historical context. He doubled down on his belief that “race fuels the progressive movement.”

“Whether it’s slavery, segregation, lynching, Ku Klux Klan, to today’s racial quotas, illegal immigration by skin color, groups like La Raza, the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, etc., it’s always about, ‘Let’s divide people by race.’”

Jones strongly disagreed that liberals were responsible for the United States’ history of institutionalized racism and credited people of conscience on both sides for fighting against it.