Throughout his campaign leading up to the 2016 elections, the liberal public cried out about Trump's blatant tactics appealing to the bigots, racists, and white supremacists who supported him. His mainstream supporters who claimed to not be racists themselves launched into a defensive tirade that the left was quick to label people and twist facts.
When he used hateful rhetoric to incite violence, they claimed that his words were being misconstrued. When he repeatedly associated "Black" with "inner-city" and "poor", we were told he wasn't a racist (look, pictures of Trump with Black people, see!). When he continually insulted Mexicans and labeled Mexican immigrants as "killers and rapists", the right agreed that we needed to build a wall -- but that didn't mean he was racist, just trying to protect our country from "the illegals". When he launched verbal attacks against Muslims, the right jumped on board with their rapidly growing Islamophobia and even supported the idea of an unconstitutional Muslim registry stating Muslims who don't pose threats shouldn't care about their name being logged in a database. When people drew comparisons between Trump and Hitler based on Trump's emulation of Hitler's campaign strategies and speeches, they were criticized as unfair and slanderous. When concerns were raised about ties to known white supremacists, they claimed it wasn't Trump's fault people like David Duke (former KKK leader) were his fans.
Despite denigrating pretty much every group of people throughout his campaign, his supporters denied any possibility that he was in fact promoting the concept of white supremacy. Then he appointed Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist, an act David Duke lauded as an excellent decision. One that terrified the intellectual liberal community as a flagrant signal of extremism. As CEO of Trump's campaign Bannon took full credit for the "populist nationalist movement" that became a key strategic tactic. Prior to that, he was chairman of Breitbart News which he himself called "a platform for the alt-right". Yet despite Bannon's own affirmation of being an alt-right proponent, Trump claimed he disavows the alt-right movement and would never hire anyone associated with it. Except that's exactly what he did -- he hired Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist and senior advisor, and decided that this man lacking any experience in security, foreign policy, or even government in general will join the National Security Council. As if the aforementioned isn't already disconcerting, it's worth also noting that Bannon is a self-proclaimed Leninist whose goal is to "destroy the state, bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today's establishment".
Getting back to the topic of white supremacy (not that we strayed very far at all), it has been reported that Trump is working to revamp the counter-terrorism program to focus on Islamic terrorism only, removing domestic white supremacy groups as an area of concern and focus. Following on the heels of his executive orders to ban refugees and restrict entry to the U.S. for people coming in from seven predominantly Muslim countries for the sake of national security, it seems he is once again taking the position of associating Islam with terrorism. But wait, why would he explicitly remove white supremacy groups as an area of focus for a counter-terrorism group when statistics show most terror attacks in the U.S. have been carried out by people associating themselves with white supremacy, not Islam?
We have seen how the label "terrorist" seems to be difficult for people to use when the perpetrator is White, opting instead to refer to the attackers as a "lone wolf" or suicidal loner always seeming to emphasize the person's mental instability. And yet, while we are closing our borders to "make the country safer", also on the horizon is Trump's plan to soften laws around gun ownership which would enable anyone to buy a gun, including people with mental illnesses that increase their propensity for violence, paranoia, or delusion. We may have a lot more lone wolves in our future carrying out violence in the name of white supremacy and white nationalism which are growing in popularity at alarming rates, especially thanks to Donald Trump.
Trump may publicly deny following any white supremacy ideology, unless you watch his Twitter account where he has followed and retweeted white supremacists who openly promote the theory of white genocide (the white nationalist conspiracy theory that immigration and diversity will cause the extinction of white people). It would behoove our president to disassociate himself from white supremacist individuals and organizations, but he has not, perhaps because of their supreme approval of him. One such organization is the National Alliance, which was founded by the author of the Turner Diaries (a novel that has inspired many white supremacist terror attacks), and which says Trump's presidency is a move in the right direction. Another prominent and terrifying figure in the white nationalist movement and MAGA promoter is Richard Spencer who celebrated Trump's victory with this speech.
While Trump doesn't come out and say a predominantly White America is what would "Make American Great Again", his unwillingness to embrace diversity in our country is a telling indicator of his vision. He not only does not denounce hate crimes against people of color and murders of Black men by police officers, but he instead has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for instigating crimes against police. Then he nominated Jeff Sessions as Attorney General who is against investigation into murders by police. Trump, instead of advocating for police reform, is actually pursuing militarization of the police, which raises red flags for many reasons, not the least of which is the infiltration of white supremacists within the police system.
The list of examples is far longer than I am able to research and write about, and sadly continues to grow longer. I believe that many of the people who voted for Donald Trump sincerely believed he was being unfairly labeled as a racist, but the mounting evidence shows otherwise. Whether directly or indirectly, Donald Trump has shown himself to be a proponent and protector of White Supremacy, and he needs to be held accountable for it.
#whitesupremacy #trump #bannon #sessions #whitesupremacists #racism #richardspencer