By Rmuse
These
Trump appointments of extreme racists and religious bigots do not bode
well for any Americans who are not white and not Christian.
*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
As this column confesses more than one wants to,
it is a travesty
that the American people are so woefully ignorant and in many cases just
plain stupid. Of course no citizen wants to admit that their fellow
citizens are “thick,” but as a classical Cynic one calls it exactly as
they see it.
There is a misconception among some of the more cognitively
challenged in America, typically on the right, that what made America
exceptional was its predilection to interfere around the world and use
its military might to impose its will on people and nations; kind of
like what the incoming fascist administration promises.
However, what
really made America exceptional, and helped build America into a great
nation, was its policy of accepting any and all people, no matter where
they are from, or no matter what color they are, or no matter what
religion they observed into the country with a clear path toward
citizenship; that exclusively American exceptionalism is about to be
eradicated with a decidedly white supremacist administration chosen by a
minority of the people.
As a few Americans learned over the past few years, it is not just
the idea of foreigners who want to emigrate and live in America that
offends those who voted for Trump, they are offended that any non-white
and non-Christian person lives in ‘
their’ America.
Subsequently, those white supremacists were crucial to electing a
swindler and television celebrity who is already building an
administration staffed with white supremacists; supremacists that polite
company refers to as “
white nationalists.”
What that incoming administration means for a very significant
percentage of the American population is that this country is a couple
of months away from having a White House administration with a clear
agenda of specifically targeting about a third of the population to put
them in a place the majority of Trump voters demand; at the mercy of a
toxic white supremacist movement. As Ned Resnikoff
noted, “
The doctrine of the Trump administration will be white nationalism [supremacy].”
Many readers are already aware that to keep tabs on his
administration’s progress to racially and religiously cleanse America of
undesirables, Trump
appointed white supremacist
and all-around malcontent Stephen Bannon as most senior adviser and
strategist. Some people may have heard that Bannon is being tapped to
begin spreading Trump’s white supremacy hate throughout the European
Union; more on that in another column. But Bannon is just an adviser and
strategist for Trump and although he has the happy fascist’s ear, the
real impending damage is going to come from the administration’s
appointees who will wield a dangerous amount of white power under the
guise of “
governing.”
It is difficult to call to mind when in American history an incoming
administration not only campaigned on white supremacy, but immediately
upon winning began choosing avowed racists and religious bigots to serve
and advise; at least a third of the population should be absolutely
terrified.
As an aside, world leaders should also brace for some of
Trump’s white supremacy if
confirmed Islamophobe Rudy Giuliani, also a
blatant racist,
eventually becomes Secretary of State. He will be free to spread some
Trump and Fox News’ hatred around the globe through official government
and diplomatic channels.
Closer to home, people of color can look forward to institutionalized
white supremacy that will erase whatever Civil Rights gains they have
made over the decades when the federal criminal justice system is
administered by a man that was
too racist
to serve as a federal judge and rejected by the Senate. If Jeff
Sessions (R-AL) does become attorney general, and there is every reason
to believe he will, it will signal the end of the Justice Department
enforcing Civil Rights laws or holding Republican states to account for
voting rights violations.
Sessions is notorious for
claiming the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was “
an intrusive piece of legislation;”
with Sessions running the Department of Justice, voting rights
violations will be celebrated, not prosecuted and it is hardly an
exaggeration based on his past statements.
In testimony before Congress in 1986, a prosecutor, J. Gerald Hebert said that
Sessions agreed with another racist and federal judge that a white lawyer was “
a disgrace to his race”
because he dared represent African American clients. Mr. Hebert also
testified that Sessions referred to the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (N.A.A.C.P.) as “
un-American” for “
trying to force civil rights down the throats of people.”
Remember, this was in 1986 and over two decades after passage of the
Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and 210 years after the “
all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Founding Fathers; it was also 118 years after ratification of the
14th Amendment
guaranteeing all citizens equal and civil rights. Any hope that any
person of color or a person of a non-Christian religion may have had
that the Department of Justice in a “
white nationalist”
administration will fight for every American citizen’s
constitutionally-protected equal and civil rights likely took a major
hit with news that Trump wants Sessions as Attorney General.
Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Former Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn, will be just as devastating to the Muslim community as Sessions
will people of color. According to Flynn, like many Republicans, in his
mind there is no distinction whatsoever between terror organizations
like ISIS and the Muslim religion. Flynn obviously subscribes to Trump’s
hateful campaign rhetoric that fearing and hating Muslims, even
American Muslims, is only logical since he claims that Muslims are
terrorists. He actually used Twitter to
declare that “
fear of Muslims is ‘RATIONAL’” and only left it to the reader’s imagination to go to the next step and believe that “
hatred of Muslims is RATIONAL.”
Flynn also supported Trump’s “
big deal” during the campaign that to defeat “
radical Islam”
that it is vital that all politicians use that pejorative, radical
Islam, ad nauseam. Flynn also dared all leaders in the Middle East to
renounce
their Islamic religion because in his mind that Abrahamic faith is
terrorism. Flynn took to Trump’s favorite means of communication,
Twitter, and
wrote:
“In next 24 hours, I dare Arab & Persian world “leaders” to
step up to the plate and declare their Islamic ideology sick and must B
healed.”
One wonders how long it will take a cretin like Flynn to convince
Trump to issue an executive order demanding, not daring, all American
Muslims to “
step up” and declare their Islamic faith sick, and
that it must be eradicated off the face of the planet. It is not out of
the realm of possibility either. It is still two months before the
fascist administration takes power and already there have been serious
discussions on implementing a
national registry for Muslims and the precedent of internment camps to “
make American great again;” or some such bovine excrement.
These first set of Trump appointments, or proposed appointments, does
not bode well for Americans who are not white and not Christian; the
Census Bureau
regards
people from the Middle East and Northern Africa as part of the white
population, but they are predominately Muslims so they have plenty to
fear. What is clear is that Donald Trump is following through on his
white nationalist (supremacist) rhetoric he promised throughout the
campaign.
It is bad enough that a white supremacist (Bannon) and Muslim hater
(Flynn) will have Trump’s ear and advise him according to their
particular hate, but worse that the head of the Justice Department
cannot countenance that all Americans are guaranteed equal rights.
The
combination of two bigots advising an authoritarian with an attorney
general unwilling to enforce equal and civil rights laws will not make
America great again; it will make America a mirror image of the incoming
white supremacist administration and there is precious little anyone
can do to stop it.