Donald Trump is a racist.

I know, the R-word is a thing you're not supposed to say, at least not about people who are currently alive and running for political office. The only real racists, it seems, are Klan members and self-identified white supremacists (many of whom back Donald Trump). This is why Trump can say that an American-born Hispanic judge isn't suited for his job because of his Mexican heritage, and while Trump's Republican Party mates criticize the comments, they refuse to flat-out say, "This guy is running a racist campaign, and his comments are racist."

Donald Trump is running a racist campaign, and his comments are racist. Lately, he's been making hay about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, currently presiding over cases alleging fraud against Trump University. According to Trump, Curiel should have recused himself from the case because of his ethnicity. Curiel has "an absolute conflict," Trump said, because he is "of Mexican heritage." The implication: Certain groups of people are simply less capable of performing the duties of their job than others, based solely on their identity and not actual ability.

It's not about just one judge — this is a broader worldview that renders non-whites, and members of other minority groups, perpetually suspect (and as a result, at a perpetual disadvantage). It is nonetheless worth mentioning that this particular judge was born in Indiana and that he's a well-regarded jurist who has faced down assassination threats from drug cartels. "I'm building a wall," Trump said. "It's an inherent conflict of interest." And also: "We're building a wall. He's a Mexican!"

By that logic, the only people who are neutral and capable of doing their jobs without bias are straight white men — as if straight white men don't have a race or a gender or a sexuality, and instead are the standard while everyone else is deviant. Similar arguments arose a few years ago in an attempt to disqualify Vaughn Walker from judging a case on same-sex marriage, because Walker is gay. Consider the absurd inverse: Barring straight judges from ruling on cases pertaining to heterosexual marriage (no more married straight divorce court judges, one supposes). Or the inverse of the Trump case: Blocking white male judges from presiding over cases involving parties who have ever said hateful things about white men.

There are, of course, instances in which it is appropriate for judges to recuse themselves from a case, which is why the concept of recusal exists in the first place. If a judge has a personal stake in the outcome of a case — if Curiel were an investor in Trump University or if his wife taught there, for example — he or she should not preside over it. But a judge's race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation does not render them inherently incapable of ruling on the law.

The contention that Curiel cannot fairly preside over a case involving Trump's for-profit university because he is of Mexican descent and Trump has said some racist things about Mexicans is an impressive feat of circular racist logic, wherein those on the receiving end of Trump's racism suddenly become less qualified by virtue of their imagined objections to it (it's worth noting that Curiel has made no public comments about Trump's views on Mexicans, nor is that an issue in the fraud cases; Curiel has done nothing other than exist to suggest that he is biased). Trump has also said that a Muslim judge may suffer from the same apparent identity defect of not being a white Christian male: When asked whether a Muslim judge would, like a Mexican-American judge, be biased against Trump because Trump has suggested that he would ban Muslims from entering the United States, Trump said, "Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely." The conclusion that a federal judge cannot do his job because of her religion or where his parents were born is the definition of bigotry and racism.

So let's call that what it is: Racism. Not simply "unacceptable," per Susan Collins, or "inexcusable" per Newt Gingrich. Mitch McConnell couldn't even call it racist when he was asked directly about racism several times over.

Using the word "racist" to identify racism matters. It's not an issue of political correctness or heightened sensitivity; it's the ability have a rational, accurate conversation wherein words have agreed-upon definitions.

It's painful to watch the Republican establishment try to split this baby: Condemning Trump's statements so as not to alienate a growing Latino electorate, while still embracing the candidate himself — and therefore not calling the guy racist. That's made all the more difficult by a candidate who has run a campaign of unapologetic racism, from suggesting Mexicans are rapists, to wanting to build a wall along the border, to being endorsed by a leading white supremacist, to calling for a ban on Muslims traveling to the U.S., to refusing to condemn the virulent anti-Semitism spewed in his name.

One has to wonder what it is, other than not being Hillary Clinton, that so many Republicans see in Donald Trump — and what it says about today's GOP that they are comfortable with an unstable, unrepentant racist as the country's leader. Trump is not particularly interested in, nor politically consistent on, the standard right-wing social issues of abortion and gay rights. His foreign policy positions are schizophrenic where they exist at all, alternating between the ignorant and the dangerous. He's skeptical of the free trade agreements championed by many Republicans. It seems the one issue on which Donald Trump does line up with the Republican establishment is in his opposition to immigration and immigrants' rights. Trump just takes it further and states his positions in starker, more black-and-white terms. For the Republican establishment, who have long ginned up the base in opposition to immigrants' rights, this showing of hands must be awkward indeed.

And yet most of them seem to have decided that a racist, unpredictable, thin-skinned despot is acceptable as long as he's their despot.

If Trump becomes president, he will almost surely appoint one Supreme Court justice, and many more federal judges. The GOP has made clear it is obstructing the appointment of Merrick Garland in the hope that their party will win the White House and they will get to put their own judge on the court. Trump has made clear that he believes a judge's race, ethnicity, or religion — assuming the race or ethnicity is not white, and the religion not Christian — interferes with that judge's ability to perform the duties demanded of them. Indeed, when Trump listed his Supreme Court favorites, they were all white. And this potential "whites only need apply" standard for the American judiciary is met by the GOP with a collective shrug, as so many Republicans continue to endorse a racist.

That's why the R-word matters: Because painting over racism as something in the history books done by faceless men in white hoods obscures the stubborn persistence of racial discrimination and allows it to thrive. It allows politicians to hide behind terms like "unacceptable" or "a big mistake," as if Delivery Boy Donald brought the wrong pizza to your doorstep instead of Presidential Contender Trump smearing an entire group of people as inherently less capable and less deserving of influential public roles because of their heritage. It normalizes not just bad ideas, but the bad act of discrimination.

If we want a real discussion about American values, who we want as a leader, and how we expect that person to preside over a nation where people speak hundreds of languages, practice dozens of religions, and come from all sorts of racial and ethnic backgrounds, we need to be able to use accurate, appropriate language. For folks so concerned about overly sensitive "politically correct" Americans, who back a candidate whose whole shtick is supposedly telling it like it is without worrying about hurt feelings, Trump supporters seems awfully hesitant to put a word on his habit of exhibiting bias toward non-whites and his assertions that people are rendered less competent because of their ethnic or religious backgrounds. The term for those things is "racism." If politicians and members of the media want the American people to have an honest conversation about, and a real reckoning with, what is at stake in this election, then we all need to start using it.

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Jill Filipovic senior political writer Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com.

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