The Republicans have been peddling racist, homophobic, anti-semtic, misogynistic and anti-immigrant rhetoric for a long time. The party of “Lincoln” is long gone. America has hailed itself as “exceptional,” not only for its economic and military prowess, but also for its embrace of immigrants (think Statue of Liberty.) However, it has a political party that embraces the idea that the only people who should share in the “American Dream” are White Christian Males (Christian Women are okay as long as they take their proper place as secondary to men.)
I recently was in Plymouth Massachusetts and felt compelled to visit the famous rock, where the first European settlers landed seeking freedom. The public official monitoring the site informed us the rock has clearly diminished significantly in size. It certainly didn’t live up to the magnitude of the occasion. More importantly, he informed us that “If it wasn’t for the Native Americans none of the Pilgrims would have survived.” We know how that story ends. The visitors, possessed by the delusional idea of their exceptionalism, that somehow God had delivered America to them, annihilated the gracious hosts by dehumanizing them, by demonizing them as savages. Turns out the ones who chose to dehumanize were the true savages.
History is clear on some of the most essential ingredients of American economic prowess. It was built on the backs of an enslaved people. Once again, this happened by dehumanizing Blacks and labeling them as savages. Once again, the ones dehumanizing were the true savages.
Our country was also built on the backs of immigrants from European nations. Immigrants from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and people from all over the world have sometimes risked their lives seeking the promise and freedom of America. The American story is the contributions of people from all over the world who brought their intelligence, resources and desire for freedom. Frankly, we are not exceptional without them.
Sadly, the Republican Party has declared that the very thing that makes us exceptional is destroying us and must be rooted out. It may be hyperbole, but I venture to say that the Republican creed has strong echoes of the Pilgrims, except now the dehumanization includes: women, members of the LGBTQ community, Blacks, Brown people from other countries. Theirs is a world where White Male Christian Supremacy rules and anyone that threatens their power is demeaned, marginalized and turned into a threat.
The Don and his party have decided to go full throttle on creating as much fear and division as possible. There is no policy talk except to give tax breaks to the richest Americans furthering the painful inequality many of his own supporters experience. Books have been written about why working class White people support a party that has never been concerned with its economic interest. Many theories prevail, but I will weigh on one that may lack nuance but believe at its core is true: White working class people will vote against their own interest because they believe in the fantasy promoted by White power brokers that tell them that their success is threatened by people who don’t look like them. “Those people” are destroying the country and depriving them of the opportunity to live the American dream. To quote The Don they are “vermin poisoning the blood of our country” and they are “not human.”
With 45 days left in the presidential race the contrast couldn’t be more stark. Do you believe that we should live and celebrate a multi-racial, multi ethnic democracy? Do you believe that women have the right to make decisions over their own bodies? Read books they choose to read? Love the person they choose to love? Have the right to vote in free and fair elections? Address economic inequality by creating compassionate policies that lift people up instead of billionaires getting richer and richer?
The Don and the Republicans reject this. They say these are radical ideas that are destroying us. They go after childless “cat ladies” who should get married and stay at home making babies. People like Fucker Carlson interview and promote a Nazi apologist historian. Daryl Cooper, who claims that concentration camps were a “humane” solution to widespread hunger. You would think that giving voice to despicable views like this would give pause to people like J.D. Vance, but of course, you would be wrong, as on the heels of the interview, Vance agreed to be interviewed by Carlson.
Then we have the Republican Party’s support of the self-acclaimed “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson who is running for governor of North Carolina. Robinson has performed the amazing trick of turning a Black man into a White Supremacist. Robinson has said we should go back to a time when “women couldn’t vote.” He has railed against the LBGT community. “Slavery is not bad,” he wrote. “Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.” A wannabe Klansman Robinson also said: “I’m not in the K.K.K.. “They don’t let Blacks join. If I was in the K.K.K. I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!”
The Don has endorsed Robinson saying that Robinson was “Martin Luther King on steroids.” (I guess The Don’s comment about him being MLK on steroids didn’t land too well with him?)
What’s on steroids is The Don and his ilk’s dehumanization of others. Haitians in Springfield Ohio are eating people’s pets. Once again, the Don and his cronies gin up fear of immigrants (in this case legal ones!) by dehumanizing them, rendering them as savages.
For the next 45 days expect the noise to get louder and louder. As American history shows us time and time again, those who demonize and dehumanize others as subhuman savages are the true savages. The fact that this is still a close race boggles the mind. Then again, dehumanizing and defining others as dangerous works. That’s what dictators do. That’s what Hitler did to the Jews. Whatever exceptionalism can be fairly attributed to America, we are still a place where a political party can be successful in stoking the fear that hard working legal Haitian immigrants are “eating our pets”.
The Grand Offal Party 