Lilly Workneh - This Election Has Completely Debunked The Myth Of A ‘Post Racial’ America // An American Tragedy By David Remnick
When Barack Obama was
elected in 2008, many assumed a “post-racial” America was upon us. They were
fiercely wrong. People believed that the nation had somehow reconciled its
racism by electing a black man into the White House. As it turned out, one man
alone could not undo the countless systemic issues that have plagued a country
built on slavery.
During Obama’s last year
in office, we saw just how deeply wrong the idea of this “post-racial” era was
with the rise of the alt-right movement and the racist attacks that have
unfolded as a result of Donald Trump’s
campaign for president. Trump’s campaign has catered to
right-wing and far-right voters who enthusiastically promote his racist
dog-whistle pitch to “Make America Great Again.”
Since the start of his campaign, the
Republican presidential nominee has rolled out proposals and delivered speeches
that came with incredibly offensive messages about America’s most marginalized
groups, including black
people. White nationalists heard him loud and clear, and have become
energized to rebrand white supremacy as a mainstream idea. Behold, the alt-right
movement
The alt-right
movement, as described by the Southern
Poverty Law Center, is a group of people who subscribe to a far-right
ideology “at the core of which is a belief that ‘white identity’ is under
attack through policies prioritizing multiculturalism, political correctness
and social justice, and must be preserved, usually through white-identified
online communities and physical ethno-states.”
The movement, which is
made up of mostly disgruntled young white men, has become extremely vocal
online over the course of Trump’s campaign. They have weaponized social
media and identified new ways to attract interest among Trump supporters
through their highly-active online presence and hate-filled hubs on the
internet. Racism is the movement’s central premise; they are explicitly
anti-semitic and reject christianity entirely.
Members praise the
presidential candidate for creating a space to allow their hateful views to
permeate current political discourse. He has provided white supremacists with a
safety net and served as a catalyst for the rise
in hate groups who are actively
campaigning to help elect him into the White House. Just
last month, the KKK’s
newspaper printed a front-page endorsement of Trump, using his campaign
slogan as the headline
Trump has tried to
distance himself from hate groups. A Trump spokesperson previously
told The Huffington Post that “Mr. Trump has repeatedly disavowed
these groups and individuals, as well as their hateful rhetoric, which he
strongly condemns, and will continue to do so.” However, the irony here is that
Trump is guilty of spreading hateful
and racist rhetoric himself. Throughout his campaign, Trump has
repeatedly disrespected the black community by dismissing the reality of police
brutality, condemning the Black Lives Matter movement and believing all African
Americans live in crime-infested inner-cities.
He has called Mexicans
rapists, taken a tough stance on immigration and has pledged to ban all
Muslims, repeatedly implying that they are all terrorists. His campaign slogan
“Make America Great Again” is racist in and of itself, and white supremacists
are enthusiastic about it because it signals to them that Trump also yearns for
a time when being white meant being in control.
Trump has shown, time
and again, that he has absolutely
no idea how to reckon with the present-day reality of race in America
nor how to bridge the country’s racial divide. Trump serves as a beacon of hope
to his core supporters. He coddles their ambitions to maintain America’s system
of oppression and emboldens them in dangerous ways that have led to serious
consequences. Just last week, a
black church was burned and vandalized with graffiti that read “Vote Trump.” On
Sunday, a black man was verbally attacked by a Trump
supporter who called him a “n****r” and threatened to physically harm him.
Black people have been pushed
and shoved at Trump rallies and other people of color have been
bullied online by Trump’s supporters.
Racist Trump fans are
here to stay, and they have gained mainstream exposure at a frightening speed
over the course of this election cycle. In a recently-published
piece by HuffPost Highline, reporter Luke O’Brien spoke with some of the
most dangerous Trump supporters among the alt-right. He warned readers that
“unconscionable racists will be a force in American politics well beyond
November 8.”
“The movement has
unleashed an ugly and volatile force into American politics,” O’Brien wrote. “It
has proved that a small group of trolls can poison discourse with violent,
racist rhetoric and help to elevate a candidate who entertains ideas like
registering all Muslim Americans in a database. It has built the iconography,
language and infrastructure for a millennial version of an old hate.” It is still unclear
what will unfold in the months following election day, but one thing is
immediately apparent: America has never functioned as a “post-racial” society,
and it damn sure isn’t starting now.
An American Tragedy By David Remnick
George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay Freedom of the Park. “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”
The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. Trump’s shocking victory, his ascension to the Presidency, is a sickening event in the history of the United States and liberal democracy. On January 20, 2017, we will bid farewell to the first African-American President—a man of integrity, dignity, and generous spirit—and witness the inauguration of a con who did little to spurn endorsement by forces of xenophobia and white supremacy. It is impossible to react to this moment with anything less than revulsion and profound anxiety.
There are, inevitably,
miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened
right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil
liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been
repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free
national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear
into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties
of Other whom he has so deeply insulted. The African-American Other. The Hispanic
Other. The female Other. The Jewish and Muslim Other. The most hopeful way to
look at this grievous event—and it’s a stretch—is that this election and the
years to follow will be a test of the strength, or the fragility, of American
institutions. It will be a test of our seriousness and resolve.
Early on Election Day,
the polls held out cause for concern, but they provided sufficiently promising
news for Democrats in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, and
even Florida that there was every reason to think about celebrating the
fulfillment of Seneca Falls, the election of the first woman to the White
House. Potential victories in states like Georgia disappeared, little more than
a week ago, with the F.B.I. director’s heedless and damaging letter to Congress
about reopening his investigation and the reappearance of damaging buzzwords
like “e-mails,” “Anthony Weiner,” and “fifteen-year-old girl.” But the odds
were still with Hillary Clinton.
All along, Trump
seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right.
That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the
spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of
economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That
the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of
vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic
norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline
and suffering.
In the coming days,
commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe
their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and
“essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of
the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a
gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of
blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to
point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately
kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the
aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader
of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a
popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends
of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law
is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and
how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large
numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of
speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient
minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”
That
he was a billionaire of low repute did not dissuade them any more than
pro-Brexit voters in Britain were dissuaded by the cynicism of Boris Johnson
and so many others. The Democratic electorate might have taken comfort in the
fact that the nation had recovered substantially, if unevenly, from the Great
Recession in many ways—unemployment is down to 4.9 per cent—but it led them, it
led us, to grossly underestimate reality. The Democratic electorate also
believed that, with the election of an African-American President and the rise
of marriage equality and other such markers, the culture wars were coming to a
close. Trump began his campaign declaring Mexican immigrants to be “rapists”;
he closed it with an anti-Semitic ad evoking “The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion”; his own behavior made a mockery of the dignity of women and women’s
bodies. And, when criticized for any of it, he batted it all away as “political
correctness.”
Surely such a cruel and retrograde figure could succeed among
some voters, but how could he win? Surely, Breitbart News, a site of vile
conspiracies, could not become for millions a source of news and mainstream
opinion. And yet Trump, who may have set out on his campaign merely as a branding
exercise, sooner or later recognized that he could embody and manipulate these
dark forces. The fact that “traditional” Republicans, from George H. W. Bush to
Mitt Romney, announced their distaste for Trump only seemed to deepen his
emotional support... read more:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-donald-trumpThe Republic Repeals Itself By Andrew Sullivan
To see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle: George Orwell
Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there: Thomas Frank
see also
George Orwell: Freedom of the Park
