“Trump’s” Racism: It Ain’t the Problem
Peter Schultz
The problem
isn’t Trump’s racism. The issue is or should be understanding the white power
as a movement based an ideology that consists of a coherent worldview of white
supremacy and a forthcoming apocalypse. This kind of understanding has been
undermined, subverted by the tendency, decidedly visible in the mainstream
media and in our political discourse, to see events like Oklahoma City as
isolated events committed by madmen or by forlorn, lost, or psychotic individuals. Tim McVeigh was deeply embedded
in the white power movement and it seems quite implausible that he was, as he
himself contended, acting alone with the help of two others who he forced to
help him. And his behavior in this regard is consistent with the teachings of
those who lead the white power movement.
Or consider
the case of Dylan Roof, the young man who massacred nine black worshippers at a
Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina. He indicated his attachment to and
to being influenced by the white power movement by his postings online which
included a Rhodesian flag patch, referring to a cause that the Aryan Nations
Congress had pushed in 1983. He also used a code for Heil Hitler, the number
88, that had been visible in the 1980s, along with his use of the Confederate
flag that refers to white supremacy against what is called “multi-culturalism.”
And, of course, thanks to the Internet, Roof could have been radicalized
without ever attending an Aryan Nation Congress, e.g., any white power meeting,
or even any other white power activist.
Throughout
the 80s, the 90s, and even now, events that should be attributed to the white
power movement are treated as isolated or aberrational events and not as the
result of an ideology that many find legitimate, to say the least. As one
commentator has put it: “White power should have been legible as a coherent
social movement but was instead largely narrated and prosecuted as scattered
actions and inexplicable lone wolf attacks motivated not by ideology but by
madness or personal animus.” [Bring the
War Home, Kathleen Belew, p. 237]
Treating
the problem as if it is Trump’s racism that we need to be most concerned with,
and thinking that removing his from office will accomplish something significant,
is to repeat the myopic view that racism or white supremacy in the United
States is a reflection of madness or personal idiosyncrasies. As despicable as
Trump is, his racism is merely a reflection of his embrace of the white power
movement and its ideology of white supremacy and the coming apocalypse. We can
get rid of Trump, either by impeachment or voting him out, but that will not do
much of anything to damage the white power movement. As Belew puts it so well:
“Knowledge of the history of white power activism is integral to preventing
future acts of violence and to providing vital context to current political
developments. Indeed, to perceive the movement as a legitimate social force,
and its ideologies as comprising a coherent worldview of white supremacy and
imminent apocalypse – one with continued recruiting power – is to understand
that colorblindness, multicultural consensus, and a postracial society were
never achieved. Violent, outright racism and anti-Semitism were live currents
in these decades, waiting for the opportunity to resurface in overt form.”
[Belew, p. 239]
Focusing on
Trump and his racism blinds us to a more significant problem, viz., a political
movement that embraces racism and religious fanaticism, that is, the white
power movement. And it this movement that must be confronted politically,
socially, and legally. To succumb to what some call “Trump hysteria” will,
strangely enough, facilitate the success of the white power movement.
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