Trump’s Speech: Emoting White Supremacy

• • politics

I just watched Donald J.Trump accept the GOP nomination and his speech was a delivery device for white supremacist rhetoric. Trump’s speech proved popular with that audience, as David Duke, noted white supremacist, tweeted his congratulations:

The language Trump used, terms like “too politically correct,” “law and order,” “war on police,” the “illegal immigrants spilling over” borders, murdering “innocent young girls,” and, of course, the repeated use of “our country” in an auditorium filled with whiter-shade-of-pale white people, are all dog whistles that signal a core white supremacist message: White people built this nation, white people are this nation.

Don’t believe me? Check this is line drawing:

white men buildings

The drawing originally appeared in Tom Metzger’s newsletter, W.A.R. (White Aryan Resistance), and I included it in my book, White Lies (Routledge, 1997).

Part of the argument I made in that book is that white supremacist rhetoric is gendered. That is, white men are viewed differently than white women. The second part is that the language used by extremists is actually echoed in the mainstream. So, for example, that image from Metzger is uncannily similar to this (recent) ad for a series on the History Channel:

men who built america

The message is the same in the extremist publication as in the television ad. Both put white people at the center of the narrative about the country’s history. (updated 9:10am to add:) This is also the same message that Steve King (R-IA) was making when he asked the (rhetorical) question: “where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”  And, Trump himself is a frequent re-tweeter of white supremacist accounts. One analysis estimates that a whopping 62% of Trump’s re-tweets are of accounts that have white supremacist connections.

Steve King on white people

 

It’s too easy to point and laugh at the white supremacists in the funny outfits (like Trump’s dad), while we fail to pay attention to the way white supremacy operates in our own institutions and families.

I called the book ‘white lies’ because such narratives distort the truth about whose labor actually built the wealth in this country: African, Latinx, Asian and Native people. That labor, and the wealth and products created by it, were routinely plundered by white people.

This is the lie of Trump’s speech, too.

As he would have it, white people (those in included in “our”) are somehow more entitled, deserving or worthy of being here than anyone else. It’s the idea at the heart of white supremacy. But, fact checking Trump doesn’t seem to be working..

One of the examples I used to make my case about the connection between extremist and more mainstream rhetoric was Pat Buchanan’s 1992 convention speech, which declared that there was a ‘culture war’ for the ‘soul of America.’

Pat Buchanan was once considered on the far-right of the Republican party, but in the past few years, the party – not to mention the country as a whole – has tilted far to the right. Buchanan’s once extreme views, are now regarded as mainstream. And, tonight, Trump delivered what amounted to a ‘dumbed down’ version of Buchanan’s 1992 speech.

What Trump is better at doing than most is emoting white supremacy. He’s galvanizing people based on feelings, not facts.

Trump wearing a hat

He ended his speech tonight with the repetition and variation on “Make America Great Again,” replacing great with Strong, Proud, and Safe. The fact that Trump’s message has been so effective with 14 million people suggests that there are lots of people who are feeling weak, ashamed, and afraid.

Sociologist Thomas Scheff, who studies emotions, argues that the emotion of ‘shame’ is perhaps the most powerful feeling and that it runs underneath many social problems. Most violence, he argues, is caused by a response to shame. It’s my guess that this undergirds much of Trump’s appeal, particularly around race. The line about “We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore,” is a way of saying, “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of the offensive things I say or do.”

Is there a political strategy to galvanize a set of emotions that run counter to the fear that he is spinning into political gold? I don’t know, but desperately wish I did.

Czech University Cancels Lectures by David Duke

• • denialism, racism, white supremacists

One of the things I was surprised to learn in research for my upcoming book, is that young people (ages 15-19) surfing the Internet for information about civil rights who stumble upon a reference to David Duke have no idea who he is, and therefore don’t immediately discredit him.   I suppose this shouldn’t have surprised me given that most of the national headlines David Duke as former Ku Klux Klan wizard and then as david_duke_and_udo_voigt_2002a suit-and-tie-racist and Louisiana politician happened long before most 15-19 year olds were paying attention to news.  And, in the past few years, Duke has spent much of his time in Europe where he his brand of white supremacy has been well-received (pictured here with German far-right leader, Udo Voigt). Duke even received an honorary doctorate and often refers to himself as “Dr. Duke.”

So, it was encouraging news when I read recently that Duke was banned from delivering lectures at Charles University in Prague and Brno, Czech Republic, university authorities said.  (I guess I also felt a special glee because a couple of years ago I’d been to Brno, Czech Republic to give a talk about my work.   I’m not saying these two events are related, just a happy coincidence, but I digress.)  The article refers to Duke as a “former white supremacist,” and nothing could be further from the truth.  While he has discarded the hoods and robes of the Klan, he is a regularly featured celebrity on an Internet radio show hosted by Stormfront, the largest and longest-running white supremacist website.

Part of what’s so pernicious about Duke’s particular brand of white supremacy, racism and antisemitism is the way that he has been able to both appropriate and influence more respected hatemongers, such as academic Kevin McDonald.   Kevin McDonald’s ties to extremists such as David Duke have been well-documented by the ADL and I wrote a long post about him awhile ago.

And, Duke was among the first white supremacists to see the potential of the Internet for spreading his views of white supremacy.  Back in the mid-1990s he wrote,  “I believe that the Internet will begin a chain reaction of racial enlightenment that will shake the world by the speed of its intellectual conquest.”   The reality that David Duke and other white supremacists were early adopters of the Internet, runs counter to prevailing notions about white supremacists as bumpkins and about the Internet as an inherently democratic space.

Finally, in the category of the extremely strange bedfellows created by Holocaust denialism, in 2007 David Duke attended a conference called “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,” sponsored by the Iranian government.  While denounced by the governments of the United States, Britain (among others), in attendance were 67 participants from 30 countries including Frederick Töben of Australia, Robert Faurisson of France, and a group of Orthodox Jews who despise Zionism.  Of course, Iranian President Ahmadinejad was a key figure in organizing and speaking at the conference.  Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis a “myth.”

Perhaps now that the Czech Republic has cancelled lectures by Duke, the support he once enjoyed overseas is beginning to turn to distaste.