Trump is not a joke
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:00 pm
While researching for an article I am writing on nativist politics and xenophobia, I was struck by how nativist groups in the past have played the political game exactly the way Trump plays it now. It's both pathetic and remarkable that the fears that rich whites used in order to manipulate middleclass and poor whites are still being used and still work. Each succeeding generation always believes its circumstances are unique to any other and this is due, in part, because that is what they are told by their handlers. "This great nation has never faced the dangers that we face today and how we choose to react will be the legacy we leave to posterity!" We've never had an out-and-out fascist dictatorship in this country but I feel that we recklessly hurtle towards one without seeing, without believing. We hurtle towards it because we believe we are not hurtling towards one. And, quite quietly one great and glorious day, we will wake up and there it will be.
The ugliness that exists within white America--and there is plenty of it--is tapped into by Trump very effectively. To play on white American fears, a scapegoat that is leading the country to ruin is necessary to name. He's just a jerk but he is no longer a joke. He won't go anywhere but that isn't the problem. He WILL leave a legacy behind that others after him will stand on as their soapbox and it will be effective as it has always been effective.
The following article put into words the very thing I was noticing during my research. We ignore it at our peril. Consider yourselves warned:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... unner.html
The ugliness that exists within white America--and there is plenty of it--is tapped into by Trump very effectively. To play on white American fears, a scapegoat that is leading the country to ruin is necessary to name. He's just a jerk but he is no longer a joke. He won't go anywhere but that isn't the problem. He WILL leave a legacy behind that others after him will stand on as their soapbox and it will be effective as it has always been effective.
The following article put into words the very thing I was noticing during my research. We ignore it at our peril. Consider yourselves warned:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... unner.html