From genocide to genocide one constant has been the dehumanization of victims by aggressors. If a victim can be reduced in stature to a level where death can be condoned, killing can be implemented without remorse.
Dehumanization does not have to go to the extreme of a concerted campaign of murder. Slavery or state-sanctioned discrimination can be way-stops with little or no punishment should murder occur now and then.
With its treatment of Native Americans and Afro Americans, White America has engaged in genocide, slavery and discrimination. And now, with their rhetoric, Donald Trump and his Republican advisors and sycophants are pursuing a dehumanizing and demonization campaign against Hispanics, Muslims and Democrats. It is the next step in the Republican Party’s strategy to delegitimize the presidency of the first elected Afro American, from the birther movement to assertions that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim to claims that he clandestinely supports the killing of policemen by blacks.
Trump’s total campaign has been waged not on policy and programs but rather on smear tactics to dehumanize his adversaries. By repeating a verbal description of Hillary Clinton as a criminal and a liar they are undermining her legitimacy as president should she win the election. Trump doesn’t offer a critique of her platform or details about his alternatives other than to say under him life would be great.
Perhaps we should have expected this result. Too many of our entertainment diversions, especially reality shows, pit good against evil. Cooperation is encouraged only as far as it advances one’s own self interest.
Republicans want to paint themselves as the law and order party, Democrats as the party of lawlessness and chaos.
Trump began the assault on normative behavior when he launched his America First campaign with an attack on Mexicans and Muslims. The net effect of his remarks was the unleashing of forces of evil in our society—anti-Semites and racial bigots. By not quickly and forcefully repudiating comments by David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan and neo Nazi extremists, and by knowingly or inadvertently retweeting their screeds, Trump emboldened them.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Duke announced his intention to run for a U.S. Senate seat from Louisiana Friday. “I’m overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I’ve championed for years. My slogan remains ‘America First,’” Duke said.
Evil cannot be given fertile soil on which to grow. Yet Trump has been its constant gardener.
The produce of his tolerance of intolerance emerged for all to see during the just concluded Republican National Convention. Trump confidante Al Baldasaro, a New Hampshire delegate and state representative, said Clinton should be tried for treason and hung. Or killed by firing squad.
Potential vice presidential candidate and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich proposed that all Muslims in the United States be required to take a loyalty test as a condition of their continued residence in the country, even if they are U.S. citizens. One wonders how a former university history professor does not know his suggestion is patently unconstitutional.
Another passed over vp hopeful, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, led the assembled delegates in a modern day version of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution when he called upon them to shout “guilty” after he enunciated Clinton’s alleged transgressions as secretary of state.
New Yorkers remember Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s assault on art he didn’t like, similar to Hitler’s attack on Modern Art, what he called Degenerate Art. Giuliani is another Trump insider.
Images of a police state come to mind.
In his acceptance speech Thursday night, Trump said he would suspend immigration from any nation that has been “compromised by terrorism.” Does that mean no one can come here from Belgium or France, for surely those countries at present are nests of opportunity for Islamic terrorists?
There were some winning rhetorical flourishes in his near 75-minute speech. Saying, “I am your voice,” he forcefully drove home the point that he would be the champion of the people, not special interests. But as The New York Times noted in a front page article Friday under a picture of Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, just a few blocks away from the convention hall lobbyists already were feasting on the potential business and influence they would have in a Trump presidency. “Lobbyists cheerfully passed out stickers reading ‘Make Lobbying Great Again,’” The Times reported. http://nyti.ms/29XIbha
Trump also deftly turned Clinton’s campaign motto, “I’m with her,” into a more personal “I’m with you,” again defining himself as the people’s champion.
But his brag that “l alone” could effect change in Washington revealed a major hurdle he would face. He would need Congress to pass legislation that Republicans have not previously embraced. Though his daughter Ivanka, when introducing him, talked about his compassion and generosity for working women, he did not include in his speech any support for measures many women crave: a higher minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave, affordable child care. He said he would scrap Obamacare and replace it with something better without providing specifics. Getting any of these programs through a Republican Congress would be a challenge worthy of Hercules.
To almost everything he said he would do he exhorted, “Believe me, believe me.” And that his fixes would happen “quickly.”
Trump promised to deliver a safer America, that he will be the law and order president. Putting aside for now the reality that crime is down in the country, most criminal laws are enforced on the local level, not by the federal government, unless Trump has in mind a national police force that would supersede state and municipal police departments.
Interestingly, Trump did not mention who would pay for the wall he says he will build along the Mexican border. He also did not repeat his vow to deport 11 million illegal aliens.
The transcendent theme of Trump’s speech was the antithesis of the words on the Statue of Liberty. Instead of “give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Trump wants your angered, your fearful, your resentful, your bigoted, and, since he wants to regenerate the coal industry, your masses struggling to breathe clean air.
After the speech, as Trump and Pence with their respective families stood awkwardly on the podium, music blared in the background. It was the Rolling Stones singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Some viewers and commentators couldn’t help but wonder at the juxtaposition of the words against his laundry list of will-dos.
But maybe Trump intended a deeper message. Since the last line of the chorus is, “But if you try sometime you find you get what you need,” perhaps this a veiled message that Trump’s platform is what the country needs at this time.
