We’ve all watched the Donald Trump Show. His hate-filled speech against immigrants, Muslims, Black Lives Matter protesters, as well as his insults against women, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama are all in the news every day. When protesters at his rallies unfurl anti-racist banners, Donald Trump tells his crowds of angry, mainly middle-aged white men, “Punch them in the face,” “Beat the crap out of them,” “Send them to the hospital; I’ll pay for your legal fees.”
Our nation has had a long and damaging experience with racist violence. Racist speech leads to racist violence. Imagine our country with narcissistic billionaire bigot Donald Trump as the 45th president.
The whole world saw the elderly white man sucker-punch a black youth who was peacefully exiting the stadium. This was in Fayetteville, North Carolina. When interviewed, the attacker said, “The next time I see him, I’m gonna have to kill him.” The police heard the threat but they arrested the protester instead. At Trump’s rallies, there is a foul stench of fascism.
Blacks, whites, and Latinos continue to protest peacefully and continue to be abused and attacked by racist mobs egged on by Trump.
You saw the real Trump during his speech on immigration after his fake diplomatic sideshow in Mexico. The real Trump says he will build the wall. He will criminalize and round up millions of non-white immigrants and hold them in detention to be deported.
The agricultural jobs in their countries were exported due to NAFTA. If Trump wins, he will try to deport them back to the terror of drug gangs whose weapons come from this side of the border. This side of the border also spends billions buying those drugs.
At that Arizona rally, he lined up 7 or 8 mainly white women and they each testified that undocumented immigrants had murdered members of their family. So the message is “Vote for Trump. He will defend us against the immigrant criminal murderers and rapists.” This is hate speech. Hate informed by lies. No wonder the KKK loves Donald Trump. He articulates their program.
When you ask Trump supporters why they support a racist for president, they answer, “He’s just being dramatic. He’s against political correctness.” Or worse, “Donald Trump is just being honest; he tells it like he sees it.”
Racism is based on the big lie of genetic inferiority. Trump broadcasts that lie from coast-to-coast. He blames immigrants from Mexico for homicides against whites, but according to the U.S. Justice Department, whites commit 84 percent of homicides of whites.
He is putting the blame for the nation’s socioeconomic problems on working class people of color; the most incarcerated and most oppressed section of the U.S. working class. All the while he masquerades as a friend of the working class and the 1 percent gets a free pass.
Hidden under the attack on “political correctness” is an attack on anti-racism. Racism is not only politically incorrect, it is morally and spiritually incorrect. Most of humanity understands this. Racist speech leads to racist violence. Just look at Trump’s rallies and the rise of bias crimes against Muslims, immigrants, and African Americans.
In our country, racism and bigotry has played a central role in rationalizing slavery, segregation, terror, and war. It has been the central tool for dividing and weakening the working class struggle for justice.
I’m not a Democrat, but those who insist that there is no difference between the two major parties need to understand that Trump’s Republican campaign is building a nationwide movement based on extreme racism and bigotry that will take our nation down the road to economic, social, and political disaster. His xenophobia and imperialist “strongman” talk will lead to war. Trump and the Republicans must be defeated.
Bernie Sanders is right. This is not the year to cast a protest vote.
Read the programs of Clinton and Trump. If there is no difference, why are billions of ruling class dollars and incalculable effort spent by both sides to win? There is a split in the ruling class.
It’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are mobilizing a big racist vote. It’s Republicans who are gutting the Voting Rights Act. They are working across the country to prevent African Americans, Latinos, and young people from voting. They are looking to steal another election.
Hillary Clinton has the support of labor, African American, Latino, women, LGBTQ, and environmental voters. She will have to respond to her constituents when elected. The struggle will continue.
Donald Trump will have to respond to extreme racists like Rudolph Giuliani, David Duke, and the Breitbart and alt-right types.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many other martyrs did not die in vain. They saved our nation from the consequences of legal segregation and racist terror. Dr. King led a multiracial movement that moved our nation toward freedom and true democracy. The GOP is out to reverse those historic gains.
Progressives can’t be neutral on this epic challenge.
People are mobilizing. Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racism is spreading among athletes across the country. Labor, African Americans and Latinos, women, youth, churches, temples, and mosques are mobilizing.
Labor and all the united movements for peace and justice are organizing to prevent the billionaire bigot from occupying the White House.
47 Days to go. A defeat of Trump’s GOP will open new doors of struggle.
“What do we have to lose” with Trump?
Everything.
Photo: Donald Trump works the crowd during a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia on November 30, 2015 as a Confederate flag is unfurled by a supporter. | Curtis Compton / AP
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