Trump and the Meaning of Charlottesville

It has been a sad and disturbing week in the USA.  The events in Charlottesville have rocked the world.

To recap, the world witnessed the following.

A Nazi/KKK gathering to protest the taking down of a statue to Robert E Lee, replete with exceptionally disturbing torchlight marches that mimicked the Nazis under Hitler, and a stream of shockingly racist invective.

One dead and about 19 injured in a terrorist drive-by, copycat murder committed by a crazed, far right-wing extremist - her name was Heather Heyer.

Many in a nation, especially in the media, expressing outrage at the initial refusal of the American President to specifically name and shame the hate mongers, even though he did decry hatred in all his forms, preferring instead to condemn the violence on both sides. The accusation has been that this refusal to condemn constituted tacit support for these racist bigots and hate-mongers in the KKK and Nazi party on the part of the US President.

A back-down by the President who specifically condemned the KKK and Nazis in the days after the events in Charlottesville, only to "double down" on his initial comments at a totally out-of-control press conference a few days after that. (Oh, the behaviour of the US media at that press conference was disgraceful, screaming at the US President and baiting him with questions designed to support a political narrative - but this circus was Trump's fault.  Instead of allowing it to continue, he could have established decorum in about ten seconds had he so chosen.)

The abandonment of this President by business leaders, and many in his party stemming from his comments, and with this, the increasing expectation that this man will soon be impeached.

The cancellation of the president's business counsels, and the firing/quitting of the President's alt-right advisor, Steve Bannon.

What to make of all this?

Trump Triumphant

As I noted as early as a blog the day he announced he was running for the Office of the President of the United States, Trump knows exactly what he is doing - he is constantly underestimated by his opponents and those in the press. Case in point - his messaging in the past week has played very well with his supporters. To recap, he has continually said the following.

Hate in all its forms needs to be condemned.

There were two groups committing violence in Charlottesville.

The answer to racism in America is jobs, and he has created a million of these.

The CEOs who abandoned him did so because they would not bring jobs back to America - implicitly, they are the real traitors who moved millions of jobs out of the country.

The killing that occurred in Charlottesville was an act of "murder"; he has refused to call it "terrorism", implicitly because that label is reserved for Muslim extremism.

As always with Trump, there is a mixture of truths, half-truths, untold truths, and bold faced lies in this.

Most in the media, and one would think the majority of elected representatives in his party reject this, again because he has not emphasized the "massive horrific elephant in the room" which is the shockingly racist actions and statements by the KKK and the Nazis. While the press and professional politicians are essentially unanimous in condemning him because of this, what of Americans themselves?

I think that the relentless accusations and invective against him in the press serves to make him stronger every single day.

During this very sad episode, Trump's approval ratings slipped, at best, 2 - 3%. He has an increasingly solid approval of between 35 - 42% of Americans, and that support has already started to recover from the dip he suffered a few days ago.

Truly, if someone still supports Trump now, there is not much this man can do that will move that support away from him. He is way beyond being the Teflon man! I think it is actually possible that he has the most solid political support of any politician in the USA right at this moment.

In a country where only 50% of people bother to vote, that support, because it is VERY committed to Trump and would likely show up at the ballot box, would mean that he would handily win a presidential election were it to be held today.

He is not a political genius, but his opposition keeps making the same mistake - when the professional chatting classes in the US Establishment pillory him, they distance themselves from the tens of millions of Americans who support him, precisely because those same Establishment chattering classes have never been held in lower esteem. At some point those classes need to look in the mirror, not to Trump, to find the source of their troubles. Instead, they have doubled down on Trump yet again, and it is not working.

Hypocrisy so Thick you could Cut it with a Knife

The crocodile tears flowed in epic proportions over the last week! The implicit evil that is Trump was decried in new and even more vehement statements, all as part of carefully orchestrated political theatre where many in the media/Establishment chattering classes now think they now have Trump on the run.

A few thoughts on this.

How is it possible that the KKK still exists as an organization in the USA, and that the KKK and the Nazi party have not been banned?  The entire point of these two odious organizations is the denial of basic human and civil rights on a massive scale, and the overturning of large swathes of the US Constitution, this stemming from a crazed and fanatical racism.

To recap - the KKK spent its first 80 years terrorizing Black people so that they would not exercise their most basic rights, and organizing lynchings. The Nazis exterminated millions of human beings because of their religious affiliation, and ethnic origins. What does this have to do with America!?

I watched many, many commentaries in the US media opining about the events of last weekend. I did not see a single call for these organizations to be banned, even from those who decry them in the strongest possible terms. Why is this so? I mean, isn't this OBVIOUS? The USA has banned tens of international terrorist groups. Why not ban these divisive and hateful groups as well?

The stated response would likely be that these people, even though they hold abhorrent opinions, still have a right to their opinions. They have, in essence, a "right to free hate speech".

OK, but free speech has reasonable limits, and is a constitutional amendment banning speech designed to foster hatred against an identifiable group or groups really not possible?  Why is no one even talking about it? Was "free speech" really supposed to include "free hate speech" that serves to tear the country apart?

What can "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal..." mean if speech aimed at overturning this simple, unifying and beautiful sentiment can be viciously disseminated, all in the name of a right that itself was supposed to stem from this very sentiment?

And it is here that I think we need to be honest and direct.

I think these organizations exist because the USA is still home to a toxic and twisted system of race relations, replete with effectively segregated communities, schools, businesses and even entire lives.

More than that, I think these organizations exist because of an unstated assumption on the part of those who could get rid of them - essentially wealthy, White male and female politicians and opinion leaders, including those on the Left and in the corporate world - that they are somehow still tolerable.

To put this another way, I think there is a very subtle assumption in the US Establishment that the right of these organizations to hate trumps the rights of others to not be hated.

And in the USA, hatred is now endemic.

The Culture of Hate

One of the comfortable assumptions on the part of many in the USA during this difficult time is that no matter what each side says to the other, and no matter what emotions it stokes, the unity of the USA is essentially secure. Other countries would be more careful - certainly much of what passes as commentary would not happen in my own country (Canada), given our fragile unity. This comfortable assumption allows for what I think is an orgy of hate to play itself out daily in that country.

Take the opinion makers on the Right. These people - Hannity, Rush L, for example - have made a career from evoking outrage and hate on the part of their audience. They are not news people or journalists. They are agents provocateurs, driving negative feeling and sentiment rather than logic in the direction that supports their benefactors, and their pocket-books.

But so do people like Stephen Colbert, whose humour coasts on an edifice of almost pure hate. Every single night he is at it, viciously carving the objects of his hate, in a series of monologues that are often admittedly hilarious. But don't be fooled - this is the smiling face of hatred, in a country where most people would say that hatred is the other guy.  I suspect that he doesn't see himself that way.

I think that hatred is now a national disease in America, forestalling any real conversation abut what unites, which dwarfs the things that divide Americans. Absent this conversation, the divisions will continue to deepen.

More specifically, if you aren't thinking about a civil war between organizations like Antifa and the KKK/Nazis, you aren't paying attention. This development would only be possible where good people assume that the other guy is the problem - which is a big part of America today.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

The typical US sentiment these days, on the part of the Left and Right, is that "We need the other side to stop hating!"

No, Americans need to get used to the idea of living next to people who are not the same colour as they are; sending their children to mixed schools; working with people of different ethnic backgrounds; to becoming, in essence, colour blind.  Tens of millions of people of good will are trying to make this happen every single day, and the counter demonstrations against the KKK/Nazis in Charlottesville were far larger - but the USA as a whole is not there yet.

Please consider the very minor race experiences of a Canadian in the USA.

I visited Palo Alto, California three times in the early 2000s. This is the hotbed of the IT revolution, and leaders of this revolution have been vociferous lately in their support for basic human rights, including opposition to all forms of discrimination.

Really?

In the hotbed of their IT revolution, at least when I visited 10 - 15 years ago, I saw exactly ONE Black person in Palo Alto in my three visits. Their absence stood out markedly. I asked about this and was advised that the Blacks lived in East Palo Alto - on the other side of a road.

If this isn't segregation in its most basic form, what is? I have since reflected that it must be easy to stand up for the rights of Black people when they may be not more than an interesting abstraction that you only ever encounter in your daily life when you watch tv.

I also went to Indiana regularly in the mid-2000s. I often listened to country radio stations, and was "shocked and appalled" to hear regular exhortations to join the "Sons of the Confederacy" where the advertisements usually asked something like "So, have you been dishonoured and insulted...???" I found this extremely odd because, while I am not an American, I was aware that Indiana was not even in the Confederacy!

Note that when Trump is impeached - and Mueller is working quietly away every day toward this inevitable conclusion - we will have President Pence, who is from Indiana, where the Sons of the Confederacy is no doubt alive and well. Unlike Trump, he will have his propaganda lines down pat - "Can't we all just get along?"...cue the crocodile tears...

The Ironies

A few final thoughts.

The people who are likely most integrated with Blacks in America are poor Whites - the very people who support Trump. Tens of millions of these people extend the hand of friendship to those of other races every single day.

ISIS is fighting a battle against modernity, trying to stop the modern world, and turn their world back to 600 AD.  The fact that the KKK still exists suggests that the USA is fighting this battle as well - where the basic ideals of equality of the US Constitution, as noted above, are still a challenge almost 240 years later.