Political Articles (pun intended!)

It is interesting to see how at times something as purely grammatical as the definite article can acquire a lot more significance than just its mere functionality. In this article called "Here Are 13 Examples Of Donald Trump Being Racist" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-racist-examples_us_56d47177e4b03260bf777e83  the 13th example ("He treats racial groups as monoliths") is all about grammar! Check it out!

"...Like many racial instigators, Trump often answers accusations of bigotry by loudly protesting that he actually loves the group in question. But that’s just as uncomfortable to hear, because he’s still treating all the members of the group — all the individual human beings — as essentially the same and interchangeable. Language is telling, here: Virtually every time Trump mentions a minority group, he uses the definite article the, as in “the Hispanics,” “the Muslims” and “the blacks.”

​In that sense, Trump’s defensive explanations are of a piece with his slander of minorities. Both rely on essentializing racial and ethnic groups, blurring them into simple, monolithic entities, instead of acknowledging that there’s as much variety among Muslims and Latinos and black people as there is among white people..."