Posted on 06/04/2016 10:05:21 AM PDT by Petrosius
Donald Trump's white America exists only in the minds of the panicked and fearful who have made him the GOP nominee
Donald Trump was born 70 years ago this month, at the very beginning of the baby boom. At that time, America was, in every sense, an unambiguously white country.
First, in demographic terms, nearly 90 percent of the population was categorized as white. Groups that in the not-too-distant past had been considered only partially or imperfectly or not really white – such as Irish and German Catholics, Italians, and Jews – had by now been largely granted white status, as part of a melting pot ideology which claimed to transform a multi-ethnic population into a society in which race and ethnicity were subsumed into a single American identity. (That this ideology could flourish in a culture that still featured massive legal discrimination against African Americans indicates the extent to which white America managed to avoid even thinking about the existence of black people.)
Second, the political, economic, and cultural dominance of white America was so taken for granted by white Americans that it was, as a social matter, invisible to them. At that time, whiteness in America was what sociologists call an “unmarked category.” For example, if a white person had been shown a photograph of the Senate, it’s practically certain that he or she would simply not have noticed that it was made up exclusively of white people. (Nor would the observer have noticed that all these people happened to be men, but that’s a different topic.)
In other words, “white” and “American” were essentially synonyms. Hispanics made up less than two percent of the population, and they outnumbered Asian-Americans ten to one. Basically everyone in America was either white or black, and while in theory black people were full citizens too, in practice they weren’t, most obviously in the Jim Crow south, but in reality in the rest of the country as well.
That country no longer exists: or rather it only continues to exist in the increasingly panicked imaginations of the sorts of white people who have – it still seems incredible when one puts it into words – made Donald Trump the Republican party’s presidential candidate.
Today, barely three out of five Americans are non-Hispanic whites. In another two or three decades, “white” people, as traditionally defined, will make up less than half the population. White America is in the process of disappearing, and it’s no surprise that tens of millions of people who thought of this as their country are frightened by the thought that it isn’t any more.
All this helps explain incidents such as Trump’s claim this week that a federal judge who has ruled against him in a lawsuit is a “Mexican,” even though the judge was born in Indiana. Clueless journalists treated this as yet another example of Trump’s apparently bottomless ignorance, when in fact it’s obviously a strategic choice on his part.
To Trump’s supporters, a person of Mexican ancestry is Mexican, rather than American, because Americans are white, and “Mexicans” aren’t. To the overt racists who make up Trump’s – and to a significant extent, the contemporary Republican party’s – electoral base, non-whites are at best Americans by courtesy or sufferance, because America has always been a white country.
A few years ago, Trump discovered that there was an enormous untapped market, as he would think of it, for overt racism in mainstream American politics. This is why he laid the groundwork for his presidential run by constantly repeating paranoid nonsense about Barack Obama not really being an American. He was, as they say in the business schools, establishing his “brand.”
It is very important to keep in mind that Donald Trump is now the leader of the Republican party, and that this means the Republican party is now the party of overt racism, in pretty much the same way the southern wing of the Democratic party was the party of overt, unreconstructed racism seventy years ago, when Trump first began to contaminate the planet.
Saying so isn’t considered polite, because that would imply that, as long as it’s the party of Trump, and, more important, Trumpism, being a Republican is no longer a respectable thing to be. It isn’t.
Most of the later immigrants--from whose ranks this Ohioan has sprung--prior to the closing of the frontier, shortly before World War I, had a large proportion who identified with some of the values of the original settlers. Since the closing of the frontier, that proportion has dropped considerably. Ignoring the variations, and particularly the racial aspects in some of those variations, is simply to ignore reality, at your peril.
Jefferson acknowledged to Congress that he bought Louisiana as a buffer between the Hispanic & Anglo worlds. Looking at events in Southern California the other day hardly refutes the wisdom of the author of our Declaration Of Independence. It is not disrespectful to anyone to understand that we are all different--some more so than others.
Until you recognize that even adhering to your particular priorities will lead to quite different behavioral expressions, depending upon the personalities of the actors, you will fail to understand the importance of carefully vetting whom you allow to join our established & already over-crowded communities.
Why would any white vote for racist dems? I doubt this election is white’s last stand, you only have to look at what they have been buying in record numbers every single year since 9-11.
With Trump's supporters, he will be strong. Just look at how they have behaved with these Mexican terrorist provocateurs. The have reacted with restraint and are changing the dynamics so that the terrorists have egg on their face.
Did you read the last paragraph I wrote?
Much of the crap that happened in CA is precisely because the government aids and abets the alien invasion. Moreover, as part of their aid they essentially prohibit the vetting of newcomers by communities/cities.
all the lower classes are peon mestizo (native american mixes)
There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.
It doesn't seem to have worked out that way, to say the least.
Rather than go on and on about White America and racial nostalgia, maybe it would be instructive to focus on why that future hasn't arrived, rather than on why the past is gone for good.
They are partially right. Trump IS the Historical American Nation’s last stand before Third World status becomes inevitable. He loses...we are done.
Some people still think that this is the same country that elected Reagan
But the overwhelming majority of that "alien invasion"is non-whites from Third World nations and also with a large non-Christian element.
There is a strong correlation between the races and ethnic groups of the world and the forms of government and economic systems they have developed and accepted over the centuries. Denying that gets you nowhere.
While this country is certainly “less white” than in 1980 (and this is very clear here in NJ), the problem for Dems is that many non-whites are tired of the economic stagnation as well. Even Welfarian gibsmedats aren’t thrilled about sacrificing their children to the street violence endemic in the ‘hoods; their lots in life have gotten worse as well.
When Obama came out with that Utopian blather and other similar nonsense during his speech at the 2004 Dim convention, I muted the TV and watched no more of that absurd speech. Had him pegged since that night.
Paul Campos (Just Another Loser)
I think whites need to not be racist, not consider themselves superior but have pride in the fact that whites have many outstanding accomplishments and made wonderful contributions to humanity. I don’t believe that whites should be forcefully wiped out or bred out of existence based on guilt.
“To Trump’s supporters, a person of Mexican ancestry is Mexican, rather than American, because Americans are white, and ‘Mexicans’ aren’t.”
They are the ones who claim this:
They call American soil Mexican soil.
They demonstrate under the explicit name of La Raza.
Leftists always - ALWAYS - accuse others of what they themselves do.
You were there with my cousin, he was from Wisconsin; I was a Hollywood Marine, MCRD DAGO.
Seems like everybody east of the Mississippi went to PI and everybody west went to MCRD San Diego.
We enlisted within 2 weeks of each other, didn’t even know he had signed on board until I got a letter from my mother about the 6th week of boot.
She told me I set a bad example for my cousin (his name was Tom Patzki, did you know him).
Once a Marine, Always a Marine.
Again; SEMPER FI, there ain’t alot of us Old Corps Grunts around anymore.
If they are so proud of their dissent, why are so many wearing masks?
But “he shor do gots a pretty mouth”.
And I am pretty damn sure he uses it on his buttbuddy.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Good post.
“If they are so proud of their dissent, why are so many wearing masks?”
So that their criminal behavior is harder to pin on them.
And I suspect that some of them have jobs that they would embarrass if they were linked to thug behavior- academics, members of the latino press, and other public figures. These aren’t all just gangbangers.
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