Clearly, the Trump campaign has made a choice to double down on white nationalism and “lawnorder,” also known as “politce brutality.” In brief, he’s standing against the tide of current events and yelling “no!” Gonna party like it’s 1965! In Selma! And he’s not going to give an inch!
For example, the Great Confederate Generals Flap would be baffling if Trump were a rational person. There are ten military bases, all in former Confederate states, named for Confederate generals. According to the BBC, “Many of these sites date back to camps set up during World War One that were reactivated again for World War Two, eventually becoming permanent establishments.” I assume there was no particular reason for naming them after Confederate generals other than to make the local (white) politicians happy at the time.
The Pentagon itself has said it was open to changing the names of the forts. Even Republicans in Congress appear to be mostly on board with the change. The Associated Press reported:
Senate Republicans, who are at risk of losing their majority in the November elections, aren’t with Trump on this issue. A GOP-led Senate panel on Thursday approved a plan by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, to have the names of Confederate figures removed from military bases and other Pentagon assets.
The only senator on the panel to vote no was Josh Hawley, R-MO, who in his first term has established himself as a five-alarm flake. I take it most Senate Republicans don’t want the names of Confederate generals to be the hill they die on.
But Trump’s ignorance of history is the stuff of, well, history.
“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Mr Trump reportedly asked John Kelly, his then-chief of staff, when they took a private tour in 2017 of the USS Arizona Memorial, a ship commemorating the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during the Second World War.
“Trump had heard the phrase ‘Pearl Harbor’ and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else,” write the authors, who quote a former White House adviser concluding the US president was “dangerously uninformed”.
And then there was this brilliant moment:
Trump then suggested using a political action committee to run advertisements letting people know that Lincoln was a member of his party.
With Trump, “most people don’t know” is a signal that it’s something he just learned, himself. The Pearl Harbor anecdote is especially stunning to me, given that Trump was born in 1946. In my experience most Americans born at that time grew up listening to their fathers talk about World War II. I am not quite that old and still heard about Pearl Harbor up the wazoo throughout my childhood. The Trump family has no legacy of service to the U.S., however, and apparently none of the adults Trump was exposed to as a child had any interest in it. That’s just not normal.
With that in mind, let us reflect on what Trump said about the Confederate generals:
…history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
Maybe somebody should quietly explain to Trump that the Confederate generals were all losers — it might be said of some of them that they were better assets to the Union than the Confederacy — and none of them served in World War II. Somebody might want to check that Trump understands what the Confederacy even was., See also David Petraeus, Take the Confederate Names Off Our Army Bases.
I understand that a disproportionate number of enlisted military personnel are from southern states, but it’s also the case that about a third of today’s military personnel are nonwhite. Standing up for Confederate generals may play well with older white southerners, but I doubt it’s a critical issue right now even with most of them.
After Trump uttered his “many fine people” comment in the aftermath of white-supremacist violence and murder in Charlottesville, his advisers persuaded him to offer more conciliatory remarks. But after doing so, Trump privately raged that this course change made him look “weak.”
You can chalk that up to Trump’s long-held dictum — never apologize for anything. Or you can chalk it up to Trump’s other long-held M.O. — stoking race war is good for Trump, and conciliation does nothing for him. Indeed, at the time, adviser Stephen K. Bannon counseled that post-Charlottesville racial strife was good politics for him.
Just for fun, somebody might challenge Trump to name one of the Confederate generals he’s defending. I am sure he knows nothing about any of them, nor does he give a hoo-haw about any of them. He’s not giving an inch only because that makes him look weak, and because he’s decided that catering to white racism is a winning strategy.
Perhaps in an attempt to gain political advantage — and perhaps, as much evidence suggests, because it’s what he truly believes — Trump has used this moment to side with Lost Cause white supremacy. His all-caps tweets for “LAW & ORDER” sound like George Wallace when he was governor of Alabama; his demand for a militarized response to the protests reminds me of Bull Connor, the Birmingham commissioner of public safety who attacked nonviolent civil rights protesters with water hoses and vicious dogs.
Does this still work? More than anything else, Trump seems to be copying the Nixon campaigns from 1968 and 1972, which pandered to white fears of black criminals and resentment of civil rights and affirmative action programs. And then there was Reagan, who ran in 1980 against those welfare queens. George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton to defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988. In 1992 Bill Cllinton defanged the racial issue with the Sister Souljah moment. But for all the many ways I dislike him, I don’t remember that George W. Bush’s general election campaign did that much racial dog whistling — maybe I’m forgetting something — and then of course the next presidential winner was Barack Obama.
Polling over current events suggests that a large part of white America has moved past the dog whistles and black criminal hysteria that Trump is counting on. Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey, WaPo:
Though Trump has long sought to exploit class resentment and racial tensions for political gain, his decision to continue to do so in the wake of the death of George Floyd — an unarmed black man killed in Minneapolis policy custody — has left some in his orbit uneasy, and Democrats eager to capitalize on what some say is a racist president revealing his true beliefs.
The racism in Trump’s 2016 campaign was mostly pointed directly at President Obama, not at all African Americans, and some whites might not have recognized it as racism. But now you’d have to be as stupid as Trump to not see it.
There is irony here, because I believe a big reason Trump defeated Clinton in 2016, especially in the rust-belt states, was that she was the one who hadn’t kept up with the times and was out of touch with the mood of working class voters. But as this awful year drags on, Trump grows more and more out of step with the large majority of Americans. As I wrote a few days ago, Trump has lost ground even with his best demographics — working class whites and older voters. And I don’t think defending Confederate generals is going to help him any.
I can remember watching the great moments in civil rights history of the 1960s on the teevee — I was a child after all — and I think seeing the dogs and fire hoses and ugly racism acted out in plain view shocked a lot of white people into changing their views on equal rights. We’re having a similar moment, long overdue, now. Politicians who don’t keep up are likely to be sorry.
Even white southerners have other things to worry about, I believe.
Stuff to Read
Erin Aubry Kaplan, White tribalism is under assault — from white people. That’s an amazing development
Eric Alterman, You Don’t Have to Publish Both Sides When One Side Is Fascism
Eric Boehlert, How Fox News lost the Black Lives Matter debate
The prison I was in, Federal Detention Center – Miami, didn't have a lot of race problems. It had to do with the physical configuration – no dining hall, no exercise yard of any kind. We were quarantined to our wing of our floor. A group of under 150 doesn't racially polarize.
My bunkie was a black man, educated, and with a fair amount of time behind bars. He said he did a year in solitary some place else because he was accused of knifing someone. Other prisons have three gangs, white. You could choose not to align with any, which made you a target for all gangs. In those prisons, every day was a test of survival skills.
Had I been thrust into that environment, I would have joined the white gang – my first objective in prison was survival. Yes, this is going somewhere.
If race riots break out somewhere in the next five months, Trump would demand that you join his white gang because those black racists will take what you have. Nobody needs to remind me that my predictive skills aren't perfect but I don't think Trump will leave this to chance. Trump needs a Reichstag Moment with black arsonists instead of Communists. I read columns that presume Trump will play by civilized rules of democracy. He hasn't and he won't.
This wasn't Trump's first pick – he wanted to run on the economy and jobs, then he was going to be the man who single-handedly ended the pandemic. Both of those issues are killing Trump in the polls and Trump can't do anything about them! Race baiting is his specialty (See the Central Park Five, birtherism, or Charlottesville.) But if Black Americans can be goaded into violence that Trump can sell as a threat to middle-class whites, he can change the direction of the polls. He thinks.
IMO, cops do not want to lose their immunity from prosecution. They know Trump will protect them, so if there's racial violence, expect cops to sit on their hands. The most radical elements on the right would LOVE a free pass at terrorizing black Americans. The cops won't stop them. Trump will egg both sides into open conflict. (my opinion) The ONLY think that might prevent a national tragedy is the white participation in the BLM movement. Finally, the white middle-class stood up for black Americans. They know it and they won't forget. What's wonderful is that white Americans did it for the right reasons – no one anticipated Trump would run on racial division which he wants to become riots but maybe we already put out the flames.
Not sure how it deleted but in 2nd paragraph, "three gangs – white, black and Hispanic."
The phrase "wrong side of history" has never been more appropriate as it is now when describing the positions taken by Trump and his right-wing enablers. It must be kinda easy to be on the wrong side of history if you're completely ignorant about it. I'm all for having the US beat back the Confederacy again, and make it last this time. It's over you dumbass rednecks, try to find another aspect of your heritage to get all weepy eyed about – maybe something that is not an appalling denigrating insult to others. I happen to be a Southerner, btw.
Trump should just consider renaming at least one base to appease those screaming about racism and the confederacy…Just change Fort Bragg to Fort Wirz. For as much as Trump knows about history he'd probably do it if it was suggested to him.
I recognize the name Wirz. One of my great-great grandfathers was a prisoner at Andersonville.
Congratulations, you found a way to make it worse. Pleeeeze don't tell Trump about this!
I think you need to see the bigger picture – it's not about how Trump doesn't know history or how out of touch he is with the more sensible electorate. All true, but you're missing the point.
Trump's strategy is to create maximum chaos. His purpose with Juneteenth is to ignite a race war. He's going to shovel the red meat to his supporters (who have to sign a waiver that they won't sue Trump/the RNC if they catch the coronavirus). He wants these people to get their guns and start shooting. Recall his words at the bible stunt, how he worked in "2nd amendment rights" as he waved the bible before the camera.
We got a preview of some of this chaos in Georgia. If you lived in a white district, voting was as easy as going to the 7-11. Everyone else had to wait in line for hours.
He's going to create as much noise, smoke, distraction as he possibly can, in order to steal the election. Even better, is to create fear, and lots of it, as his supporters start shooting. Fear will make people want a strong man to keep them safe.
Trump himself doesn't know history well enough to recognize what Juneteenth was. Someone on his staff did that; I suspect Stephen Miller.
https://youtu.be/PJZZ2MiFBl4
Swami,
LOL!
You're an evil, devious bastard,
As another one, I respect the hell out of that!
Donald tRUMP wouldn't know Antietam from Dorothy Gale's Aunt in Kansas.
Not all issues in America are all about Viet Nam, but this one just reeks of it. We had a draft and local draft boards. We had deferments that skewed service, fighting, and war damage to those of lower means. Black lives did not matter as much then and now and then we got a disproportionate number of blacks killed in the war. http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwc10.htm
Law and order and the militarization of the police force became the politics of Viet Nam hawks. They remain slightly mutated but intact. Much has been done to raise the status of the warrior class in this country, During the Viet Nam war males were slave warriors. This followed class lines, in general, until a lot of us saw what was going on. The darker and poorer you were the more likely you got drafted. Then the process went to a more fair one, with the introduction of the lottery. For once rich kids got treated like poor kids, although bone spurs and some others still avoided service. It seems more than a coincidence that the war soon came winding down. Republicans hate fair. How much money does it take to get my kid into that school? Rules and merit are for other kids. My kids get the big box of crayons. It comes with divine right and all that shit.
We need decimalization, of course of skin pigmentation but of much, much more. We certainly need decriminalization of addiction. I cringe every time I hear how addicts are mistreated in this country. We have a year round hunting season on them too, and I am not even sure if you need a permit to hunt. Members of the LBGT et.al spectrum are at continued risk, as are liberals of almost any type. Liberals are a fast rising class of cannon fodder, although they are hard to pick out. Anyone driving a hybrid car or sporting a NPR shopping bad might need to be aware of your rising status as a practice target. In my berg, things are really wild, and I have friends who complain that they find they are the wrong color white. Hereabouts, discrimination has been taken to levels of Trumpian proportions. Many fly the flag of the bone spur. Penis envy hell, they all think they should have been born rich and privileged. Status comes with the size of your pick up truck and other symbols of how big of a dick you are or could be. That increases the number and type of people you can hate and your relative status in the "culture". This class has risen since Viet Nam, and has even taken over our veterans organizations or what is left of them. Most of my Viet Nam era Vet friends would not be caught dead going into one. Strange hey?
The Civil War and Viet Nam; so much about both those eras remains unsettled and continues to haunt this nation.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Robert_E_Lee_defaced.jpg
I wonder if it will be torn down? I suspect that those in authority would see the writing on the wall. Pun intended.
Politico noted that Trump lost NASCAR and the NFL. Rather than pivot with the shifting tide, Trump continues to suggest that out of respect for the military (a completely unconnected topic) no one should be allowed to take a knee for the National Anthem.