We act amazed when white privilege and supremacy is unmasked…pun intended. It is not that amazing.
“Those who ignore or distort history are bound to repeat it.” This is the threat that permeates our politics right now.
America has a white problem not a black or brown problem.
You are probably wondering what I am talking about?
The demographics are changing in America. People of color will outnumber nationally white people by the early 2030s. No matter how this happened, there are many reasons, it is still a fact.
What really matters is if we ignore or distort current history.
We in California already have reached this new reality; white people are outnumbered by people of color.
One ominous sign of this is the resistance that seems to be growing in white supremacy. This trend is not only “troubling” but is flat out a threat to our democracy.
Democracy cannot survive in an authoritarian white supremacy land.
It didn’t in 1860 and it won’t now.
Lincoln had to resort to decidedly undemocratic means, he had to attack and kill thousands of confederate troops, ruin the south’s economy and destroy its infrastructure. Then he was assassinated, placing the Reconstruction in the hands of his Vice President, who reasserted white supremacy, a goal that Lincoln had pretty much denied.
At the very least, 40 acres and a mule would probably have survived in spite of confederate screams if Lincoln had survived; he didn’t.
American was then doomed to endure the history it has denied.
In a real sense, for over 100 years, the Union lost the Civil War; leaving segregation and Jim Crowe to ravage the south and parts of the north.
This is also an opening for fascism. Authoritarianism is a political, social and economic phenomenon. caused from a breakdown of government when societies are stressed beyond the breaking point.
For many of our fellow citizens that is exactly where they find themselves.
The world economy has directly and indirectly harmed the poor white under educated demographic in America. It didn’t take much to offend this demographic; for years their whiteness protected them from the reality of poverty that people of color in the United States have endured for over 100 years; that protection ended in the 1970s.
The Southern Strategy of Nixon was an admission by the white ruling elite how much Civil Rights (Voter’s Rights Act, Civil Right Act) had alarmed the lower white caste in America.
Nixon led the former abolitionist dominated Republican Party into becoming a haven for white supremacy.
The United States is indeed a caste society, but not just for black and brown people.
The hosts of homelessness, in California one of the richest areas on earth, it telling. If you don’t believe in castes look at them everyday living in the streets.
Homelessness is at record highs. This means the economy is not acting in any substantive way to include people in the riches that exist for a smaller and smaller white minority.
The recent tax cut benefitted the white rich first, with no real help for lower caster whites and people of color. America has interest groups that literally campaign against poor people, including all colors, to maintain a upper caste that is shrinking into unbelievable wealth.
Trump is a member of that caste and has worked overtime to destroy our democratic institutions. His reaction, and the allegiance from his constituency (lower caste whites) is typical of what happens in a democracy as it declines. Authoritarians sprout up to sell lies to the general populace with conspiracy theories (Hitler used international Jewry); Trump uses undocumented aliens, Jews and people of color.
And this works for an authoritarian. Always has!
The educated caste, college or higher, constitutes an interest group who is at the same time sympathetic to lower case people of color. We call them liberal. Republicans call us antifa.
Unfortunately, liberals tend to fall into the lies of white nationalists, who bombard liberals as a secret state within the government. None of this is true of course, but that is what a stressed demographic does, they fall victim to authoritarianism.
Progressives are on the defensive all the time.
Most of Trump supporters are being used and manipulated by an authoritarian. I liken it to the famous scene in the Wizard of Oz who hides behind the CURTAIN, that depicts a “well meaning bumbling charlatan”, the Wizard, as what an authoritarian can do; lull people into a false sense of security, or stir them up to do his evil agenda of destroying democracies.
This is happening around the planet as global climate change reeks havoc on one government after another. The world wide pandemic is exactly the trigger a racist authoritarian needs for power.
Most living people on earth have not witnessed what this fascism can do, save the black and white WWII movies and documentaries that tend to downplay fascism as the root cause of the War, but glorify the liberal response to the war, that produced ultimate defeat for fascism. It was not that simple.
“What did we fight WWII for” is a thing I repeat over and over again, because, well, why did we fight to preserve democracy and freedom if we give in to authoritarian rule as Trump is trying right now.
Trump lost the election fair and square but won’t give up. And his followers are refusing to give up as well.
Why? Because of what I have explained above, white supremacy and privilege is really what is at risk right now for millions of poor whites. They see the rise of Black Lives Matter and other minority groups pleas for justice as a direct threat to the tenuous hold that have to a caste that is barely above black and brown castes.
Some are ready to fight over this perceived danger to their status.
THE PROBLEM IS IT WON’T WORK. The plutocratic ruling caste will never simply give in to the cries for an inclusive economy. They just won’t.
Even if these foot soldiers for racism and prejudice survival make some gains, in the end they are doomed to failure, just like the Nazis were in WWII.
The bad thing is it takes a total meltdown of the society into defeat for that lesson to take effect. Once fascist totalitarianism takes hold only violence and complete unconditional surrender can stop it.
Italy has a large fascist party right now. Germany and Russia as well. They can’t stop drinking the KoolAid.
“The only way to stop a fascist is with a bullet to the head” is a outlandish but sadly true depiction of man and women kind’s only responses that work to end authoritarian fascism.
Lincoln had to destroy the infrastructure of the south totally to break the back of Confederate Fascism.
American, Russian and English 24 hour bombing was what finally killed Italian, Japanese and German fascism.
It is telling that Germany did not surrender, even though their cause was hopeless, until after Hitler killed himself, Mussolini had to be hanging from a lamp post before Italy gave in. AND Japan, in the most egregious fate, had to be nuclear bombed into quitting.
In short death seems the only cure for fascism.
Lincoln knew that, running a union war effort that only succeeded with Sherman’s march to the sea. For the first time in human history, a civilian population was tagged and annihilated. Only this killing fields of an economy and a society made the Rebels finally quit.
And Lincoln was assassinated for it, leaving the south treasonous fascist white supremacist to recover and rule the south up to and including current times.
The presidency of the United States had been occupied by a racist fascist (Andrew Johnson) who has stumbled and bumped his way into infamy. Trump is doing exactly the same thing right now. His every action is an effort to reassure white supremacy. He even calls for senseless protests with unbiased and lies for cover.
That is classic fascist behavior.
Fascists make horrible governors. Oligarchs do a lousy job of distributing resources because they first are aggrandizing themselves. That is what got Mussolini hung, Tojo hung and Hitler suicidal…they knew the corrupting that inevitably follow fascism could only be stopped with death.
Trump is right now raiding the treasury, getting millions in donations, from a Republican elite who are using racism to scare Republican die hards into destroying democracy.
He continues to try to overthrow a legal election because he didn’t win. He knows this won’t work, that isn’t the point. He is deliberately recruiting his fascist followers for the struggle ahead.
These people are not fake they are real and they are dangerous.
If you think racist fascism will give up easily your are wrong!
THAT IS WHAT WHITE SUPREMACY HAS ALWAYS DONE.
From South Africa to 1930s Germany to present day Russia, fascist authoritarianism is on the march; ALWAYS using fascist principles of terror and divisiveness to attack democracy.
We will witness this again on January 6 that Trump has begged the right wing white supremacy to show up and protest his “unfair loss” of the election. This in spite of dozens of lawsuits that have been overturned or dismissed for lack of credibility.
Racist fascism does not need credibility in anybody but their rabid poor white caste followers to exist. Do not tolerate them, that is exactly what the “Wizard” seeks to do; make fascism acceptable..
Fascism is never acceptable!
Really what he wants is something akin to the night of broken glass, that unleashed Nazi hate of Jews on Jewish businesses and neighborhoods.
Jews had nothing to do with Germany’s economic woes. But they were a convenient scapegoat for white caste woes caused by WWI and yet another virus world pandemic that destroyed the Weimar Republic.
The consequences for this were worldwide, costing over 50,000,000 deaths from WWII and more.
Yes, there is a aggrieved minority who demands justice and fairness..in fact there are several groups who are now lined up in protest of the unfairness of the “American Experiment in Democracy”.
The true culprit is the “Wizard” behind the curtain, who bends reality to support his power.
We still have a chance to stop this. There are millions of well meaning people who are ready to shun the white privilege caste system. But their votes are being right now assaulted by the authoritarian Trump who is using every trick to goad them into destroying democracy.
Where do you stand? What are you doing to stop this? What will it take, civil war or can we stop it now with vigilance and strength?
Stand up to white supremacy. Learn more about what is called “Stamped from the Beginning” that wed the American Dream to the American Nightmare of Racism and Prejudice. Work hard to become an anti racist.
And until the Republican Party wakes up, don’t support them.
Is that partisan, no it is not. It is a cry for freedom, for fairness and justice…
Listen to us.
Yes there is a reason for the anger of the white lower caste. That doesn’t mean it is right.
Hitler came to power because time after time people underestimated him. We can’t make that same mistake.
Stand up and fight if we have to to stop this madness.