In 2011, when Donald Trump went on Fox and NBC to promote ‘Birtherism’ (the lie that President Obama was not born in the US), he incited the insurrection of 2021. Almost five years later in December 2015, when Trump called a Press Conference to announce: “I, Donald J. Trump, am calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” he incited the insurrection of 2021.
Whilst the current Senate impeachment trial focuses on whether Trump’s words at the rally immediately before the violent attack on the Capitol – and in the two months since the election – incited the insurrection, the damage was done long before those events.
Of course, it’s true that Trump incited the mob on 6th January and of course the insurrection was also the result of Trump’s nine-month long claims that if he didn’t win the election it was rigged and his two-month post-election onslaught of lies and laughed-out-of-court litigation.
The great appeal of Trump as both a candidate and a President was as a racist and that appeal was most deeply felt by those on the far right – the kind of people that predominantly took part in the violence that ensued on 6th January. A plethora of far-right extremist groups saw Trump as a leader that was uniquely theirs, including the Proud Boys, Boogaloo groups, Oathkeepers, Three-Percenters, the American Nazi Party, Aryan Nations, Attomwaffen Division, various white supremacist ‘Patriot’ groups, the Ku Klux Klan and adherents to the ludicrous and dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory.
But to consider Trump’s appeal as a racist to be limited to extremist groups would be wrong and a dangerous misunderstanding – some 74 million people voted for him, after all. Among them were undoubtedly a host of ‘ordinary people’ who hold racist views. Many hold an ‘ideology of superiority’ as white people, even when it’s not articulated – sometimes it’s subconscious. They may not hate black people or even consider themselves racist, but they relish being in the majority and worry about relinquishing the advantages that come with being white – advantages they would rarely admit, but deep down know to be true and fear losing.
The far right spread ‘white genocide’ and ‘the great replacement’ propaganda – stating that non-Hispanic white people will form the minority of the population by 2050. Like so many other extreme right wing talking points, concerns of whites being the minority have passed into the mainstream (with no little help from Fox). So, when a man like Trump emerges, giving far more than a nod and a wink to those with racist views, the support is widespread, passionate and loyal. When he announced his intention to introduce a Muslim ban, he was giving the green light to the racists, confirming their ideology of superiority and saying: “It’s OK to be openly racist again.” It’s no surprise that people have been – FBI statistics show that hate crimes rose almost 20% during Trump’s Presidency and hate-motivated murders, mostly committed by white supremacists, rose to their highest number in 28 years.
As people discovered more about Trump’s past, they found a man with a long history of racist actions. He discriminated against black people in the early 1970’s, denying them tenancies in Trump properties. In 1989, after the rape and beating of a white woman in Central Park and the arrest of five black and Hispanic men aged 14-16, he took out full-page adverts in four New York newspapers calling for the death penalty to be restored. ‘The Central Park Five’ were convicted but exonerated 12 years later after a confession from a serial rapist was backed up by DNA evidence. Then Trump led the despicable Birtherism conspiracy and then came the Muslim ban. To so many white people, they identified with Trump as ‘one of us’, ‘on our side’ and, with his outright racism being coupled with a deliberate railing against political correctness, ‘someone who tells it like it is.’
Given America’s history of oppression of indigenous people, colonialism, slavery and post-emancipation white supremacy – in attitudes and actions as well as in law – the last 60 years have seen a relative transformation in terms of civil rights. Of course, that’s not to say that changes have happened fast enough or gone far enough – black people are still hugely and systemically disadvantaged in almost every area of American society, from education to housing, employment to health and beyond. But there can be no doubt that progressive change has afforded more equal rights to black people, women, people with disabilities and gay people. And there can be no doubt that some people – mostly white men – resent these progressive changes, seeing them as a threat to their perceived dominance.
Along comes Trump, disdainfully lambasting political correctness (or ‘decency’ as I prefer to call it) and people interpret his words as: ‘I will preserve your dominant position in society.’ Some people will die for a leader like that. Others will kill for one. And when such a man becomes President, gains such fanatical, cult-like support and is then voted out of office, violent insurrection is almost inevitable.
Of course, Trump’s rise to power was also based on the big lie: that the ravages of capitalist society are the fault of immigrants. Not only in the US but in the UK and elsewhere, people have been convinced that the economic problems they are facing are the fault of immigrants rather than the inevitable result of either the capitalist system or government policies. Sadly, they have been persuaded to believe this by, and vote for, the very right-wing politicians (and their media allies) who will preserve the systems of inequality that so adversely affect the working class.
There is no question Trump should be convicted in the Senate of ‘incitement of insurrection’ but, given it requires a two-thirds majority – meaning some seventeen Republicans would need to vote to convict – he will almost certainly not be. There appear to be four reasons: firstly, pure partisanship; secondly, the threat of losing their seat as Trump has made clear he will find candidates to mount future challenges to any Republican who dares vote against him; thirdly, fear of being attacked, injured, kidnapped or killed by Trump’s dangerous far right terrorist supporters; and fourthly, as very few GOP Senators appear to possess either morals or a backbone.
Irrespective of the impeachment trial and fully recognising that racism has always existed in the US, Trump is responsible for letting the evil genie of racism well and truly out of the bottle. It will be a long time before it goes back in.
Tom Lane
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