Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:52 pm
Trump slid easily into the role of a martyr. After all, Republicans have been telling us for years that the left is waging class warfare on rich people, who are being unfairly blamed for having all the money and not letting anyone else have any.
He is also white. And through his approach to people who aren’t exactly white – like Mexicans and Muslims and Chinese and others, including Jews – Trump has attracted the support of all sorts of white supremacists – the sort of people who took over the wildlife refuge in Oregon. They’re white, they have guns, and they feel persecuted.
And don’t you even talk about white privilege. As Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said to Alex Jones last week in what is the KERBLINK! moment of the century,
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“Anyone who alleges the white privilege is, by definition, a racist. I think we can say that and we should say that. That’s not a legitimate form of conversation. That’s tarring an entire group based on the way they look. That’s the definition of racism and I think people should stand up and say that because it’s true.â€
Whatever happened to the virtues of “telling it like it is”? Apparently, it’s telling it like it is only when it is welcome news, not, strictly speaking, factual. So it turns out Trump is, in Michael Savage’s words a “victim of racism.”
Moving on from skin color, Trump is nominally, at least, a Christian. And he can wave his Bible around with the best of them, even if he is less well-versed, if you’ll pardon the pun, in talking the talk. But his bigotry trumps, is Bible talk, if you’ll pardon another pun, as Trump has shown white evangelicals they don’t need religion to justify hate. It’s not hate anymore, you see: it’s just telling it like it is.
No matter how wrong it is. Maybe that’s the slogan the Nazis needed to save their image: “We’re just being honest.”
But let’s set Hitler aside for a minute and look at Trump’s Cracker Nation. These are people who have had no problem convincing themselves that as a white majority, they are being persecuted. That’s because they come from a religion that, despite being the world’s largest, has no trouble convincing its adherents that they’re persecuted. Even though they’re the ones who have spent the better part of 2,000 years DOING the persecuting.
It should be a surprise to no one, under the circumstances, that the Black Lives Matter movement quickly engendered the White Lives Matter movement. The SPLC, which tracks such things, put together a lengthy exposé on this reality-challenged group, telling us,
After the accelerated growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, many racists across America have gone on a barnstorming campaign, posting the catch phrase White Lives Matter (WLM), to counter a message they believe is playing a part in a systematic devaluing of white culture –– even orchestrating what they call a “white genocide.”
Of course, we’ve also been told by conservative sources that men are the real victims of a systemic rape culture, not women, that American men have been emasculated by feminism (which seems to prove the point, at least, that they’re self-emasculated) and loads of other unbelievably stupid stuff, the likes of which Fox News peddles and its viewers devour.
What we have here is a large scale system of apologetics for white Christian Americans – particularly men, that assures them that all their misogyny, all their racism, all their disgust for people not like them, is justified, and that the real problem is people who cannot accept them like they are. And Trump has become their apologist in chief.
Apologetics, which a dictionary will tell you is “reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine,” is a big industry in conservative Christian circles, but it is easily applicable to other areas, like…being white, or being male, or being a white male – or a white Christian male.
It is very useful because the more fanatical people are about something the less sure of it they are, and any apologetics handbook should have the big bold words on the cover, “Don’t Panic!” Inside, it will explain why everything is okay, why they have not wasted their time believing in the absurd despite all the evidence to the contrary, be it religion, racism, misogyny, marriage equality, or what have you: It’s okay to hate on these people. God wants you to.
And there is plenty of evidence in some of these cases, from the Old Testament at least, that this is true. Never forget that the Bible was used to defend racism and slavery, that it has been used to defend misogyny and hatred of gays, lesbians, and transgenders, and when it doesn’t, never fear: an entire form of marriage, “traditional marriage,” has been invented by Bible believers who have never read the Bible, in order to delegitimize the idea of same-sex marriage.
Once again we are hearing about the “Aryan Spirit†but we’re not supposed to talk about Hitler and Nazis because of some law somebody invented about people talking about Hitler and Nazis, even when they’re waving around swastika flags and giving Hitler salutes. As in those heady days of Tea Partyism, they’re also waving Confederate flags while telling us what American patriots they are.
Because historically, all real Americans have waved around the flags of other countries while reciting the “pledge of allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America…” Oh wait. So what’s with Nazi German flags? What’s with all those Confederate flags? They’re not the flag of the United States of America.
Don’t be surprised. It was “white martyr” David Lane who wrote, in “Tri-Colored Treason,” that “”America is the murderer of the White Race. … I wouldn’t contaminate my toilet with your red, white and blue rag.” Never mind that the Confederate flag is also red, white and blue.
There you go. The reason they wave Confederate flags and Nazis flags is because they’re not really Americans at all, and the thought of a rabble of uneducated white trash as the guarantor of “white” existence…well, it ought to make you at least shudder. The subtext of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is a white America, and given the flexibility of the term “white” over the centuries, that probably doesn’t include YOU.
Photo: splc.org
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
