"I'm
the least racist person there is anywhere in the world."
-- Donald
Trump
Trump is the
architect-in-chief of the “Us versus Them” mentality. His use of
paranoid projection helps whites escape any guilt and responsibility
and affix blame elsewhere. His wild claim of being the “least
racist person” would be laughable would it not be an effective tool
of his bigoted, narcissistic vision of white nationalism. As Trump
adopts a pretense of grandiosity, he also further elevates himself by
devaluing those he views as competitors and underlings.
Largely through the dull
semantics of racism, Trump has normalized white supremacy. Racial
violence, white nationalism, and white domestic terror are on the
rise in America. According to FBI director Christopher Wray, there is
an increase in domestic terrorism arrests, a majority of which
involve white supremacist violence.
Trump’s repeated use of
the term “infested,” in regard to immigrants as well as African
Americans, parallels a key part of Nazi ideology – to define the
enemy and those who posed a threat to the so-called “Aryan” race.
Nazi propaganda promoted the myth of the “national community” and
identifed who should be excluded. Jews were considered the main enemy
of the state.
The analogy between Jews
and vermin was a regular feature on the front pages of the
notoriously anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer. The
association between Jews and disease-carrying rodents featured on
countless banners and posters, issued by Nazi propaganda minister Dr.
Joseph Goebbels, which sought to equate Jews with parasitic vermin.
“Words
can be polluted even more dramatically and drastically than rivers
and land and sea. Their misuse is our undoing.”
– Malcolm
Muggeridge
In his tweets and
speeches,Trump employs the same imagery used by Nazis. However
instead of associating European Jews with rodents and rats, he
compares Latins, Muslims, and African-Americans to "animals" and vermin. His use of
repulsive language plays well to his faithful followers, just as
Hitler's hate-filled rhetoric fueled Nazi nationalism.
Trump supporters –
voters and lawmakers alike – use substantial truth to defend his
hideous words. Under the substantial truth doctrine, minor factual
inaccuracies will be ignored so long as the inaccuracies do not
materially alter the substance or impact of what is being
communicated. The substantial truth doctrine allows individuals to
avoid liability if the gist of their statement is true.
So, if Cummings’
district is truly rodent-infested, substantive truth applies. Israeli
journalist Chemi Shalev says ...
“Nazis could have used the same
excuse: Conditions in the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos, in which Nazi
filmmakers captured the masses of poor, dirty and sickly Jews shown
in The Eternal Jew (1940 German Nazi antisemitic propaganda
film, presented as a documentary) were indeed squalid, decrepit and
unhygienic in the extreme. The only detail missing is that it was the
Nazis who herded Jews into their inhuman ghettos in the first place.”
Substantive truth? What can be the effect upon the recipient of the bigoted discourse? One may look
to history and to Nazi Germany to determine the answer. A
loose-mouthed, prejudiced leader is a present danger to the liberty
and equality of all. Doesn't democracy require we honor the culture
of words – that we use them to mend differences and solve problems,
not to debase the opposition? Not to dehumanize them?
Donald Trump is the king
of demeaning, belittling, bullying ... yes, dehumanizing those
with whom he doesn't agree. He has mocked former prisoners of war,
the disabled, and the appearance of women. He has perpetuated
conspiracy theories. He has attacked Gold Star parents and widows.
And he has engaged in so many racially tinged attacks.
Peter Wehner, Senior
Editor at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC (2019), says
...
“Many other
presidents have been viewed as divisive figures, but none have taken
as much delight as Trump in provoking acrimony, malice, and
bitterness for their own sake; in turning Americans against one
another in order to turn them against one another. He seems to find
psychic satisfaction in doing so.”
With a regime built on
hypocrisy and falsehoods, Trump leads his indulgent party and
attempts to take the nation to untold heights of racism. He has a
defect of character with respect to the truth that supporters
actually admire. Why? Perhaps their color blind racism finds more
support than opposition in Trump's lies and prejudiced words.
And, all of this occurs in
2019 under the cloak of Christian responsibility. “Christians love
me … Without the evangelicals, I could not have won this
nomination,” Donald Trump claims. Again, turn to history and the
rise of nationalism in Nazi Germany.
Hitler simply could not
have risen to power in Germany without what now looks like the badly
misplaced assessment of Christians. Voting studies show that the most
intensely Protestant regions, regions of reverence similar to the
Bible Belt in today’s America, had the highest rates of support for
the Nazi Party. By 1945, Christians in Germany deeply regretted
their enthusiasm for Hitler, who gave them only defeat, destruction,
and moral disrepute.
Oh, I hear the claims of
exaggeration and partisanship from Trump supporters. Many of these
same people hold onto the man despite his hate-filled attacks
claiming “how great the economy is going under Trump” or “how
the man stands for the major platform of their political
affiliation.” The bottom line is the need to oppose a leader with
flawed character, a president who has proven his racist core. No
leader should be allowed to continue to incite hatred and violence
through his reckless words and actions. 2020 and a change cannot
arrive too early.
“First they came . .
.” by Martin Niemoller
First they came for the
Socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the
Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the
Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me –
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Source
Chemi
Shalev. “Trump’s
'Rodent-infested' Rhetoric Shows How Germany and the World Stayed
Silent” www.haaretz.com. July
28, 2019.
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