Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump's Racism Now Guides the Republican Party
If one says racist things and engages in racist behavior, one is a racist. Donald Trump is a racist, and the evidence has been in public since the 1970s. Over the week-end, his racist dog-whistles became a fog horn as he tweeted that a few non-white, female members of Congress should go back to where they came from. That the president is a racist is not the worst of it. America has had overtly racists presidents before (Woodrow Wilson being the most recent). What is most troubling is what this bigotry is doing to the Republican Party. Someday, either through the ballot box, impeachment or simple mortality, Donald Trump will be an ex-president. His is a transitory challenge to decency. The question is whether the main party on America's political right will be a racist one.
The Republican Party has had an awkward relationship with non-white Americans for decades, beginning with President Nixon's Southern Strategy. By appealing to the racist segment of the South, he sought to convert the Democratic voters to the GOP cause. Oddly throughout the hundred years before, the US had a two-party system that was non-ideological. Northern liberals and Southern segregationists co-existed in the Democratic Party. This was mirrored to a degree in the Republican Party with country-club Republicans and simple cloth-coat Republicans all under the same tent. Mr. Nixon's move made the US political parties more ideologically consistent.
During the 1980s, it was clear that the Democrats were the party of non-white Americans but at that stage in the re-alignment, it had more to do with the economic situation of minorities than racism writ large. They were poor because they were not white, but that gave plausible deniability to the idea that racism was not the problem. The problem was lack of wealth.
Before Mr. Trump, there was Pat Buchanan and before him George Wallace. All of them played on the resentment of the white working class, who hated being in the same economic boat as non-white and losing their privileged status of race thanks to integration of society (which is at best only partial). Mr. Trump, however, is president, and that makes his racism respectable within the GOP.
Now, it is true that a great many conservatives are not racist. Some are even anti-racist. A great many of the never-Trump crowd have left the Republican Party in part because of the bigotry. Unfortunately, that leaves a rump of the GOP that is pure racist. In the battle of ideas, they have not yet won, but they are in the ascendance in the Republican Party.
Mr. Trump's latest twitter storm has set the stage. He is going to run as the white power candidate in 2020, and he believes that he can stir up enough energy that his 45% support will prove a majority in the electoral college. He is gambling that he won't stir up enough energy among ethnic minorities to guarantee a Democratic landslide. One believes he has miscalculated.
Be that as it may, what is most troubling is the general silence from the other members of the party who hold elective office. Some have condemned the president, but they are a fragment of a fraction. Some have even supported the president. That is troubling beyond words.
In a country that is rapidly undergoing a major demographic change away from a white majority, a party that is running for office on racial lines is doomed. However, that does not mean it will go quietly. In those areas where it can claim power, it will act in destructive ways to preserve a status quo ante that never really existed. As the Democratic voting base grow and the Republican base shrinks, politics will grow uglier and uglier.
It is probably too late to avoid this.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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