By Robert C. Koehler
“America is for Americans – Americans only!”
The words are those of Stephen Miller, speaking last month at the infamous Madison Square Garden rally, but they define Donald Trump. This is the message – the cry from the mountaintop – he brought to the country . . . at least to approximately half of it. It’s the unifying force behind his campaign, both pragmatically and spiritually. It transcends politics and cuts to people’s deepest values and deepest fears.
It’s why he won: Donald the Outsider, standing up to the Washington status quo, opening the doors of the American government and letting its citizens flow in (legally this time, without breaking doors and windows). America is for Americans – sieg heil!
God save America! Are we on the brink of fascism? There’s a great deal to be concerned about as Trump prepares for his second term – as he prepares to carry out whatever it is that he actually plans to carry out. One obviously looming concern is this: How nutball crazy-serious is he about deporting millions of non-white (allegedly illegal) residents – all those people who are “different from us”?
At the very least, Trump’s focus on immigrants and walling off the American border was his gift of a new “other,” a new enemy, to so many confused Americans who have been uncertain whom to hate and fear ever since the civil rights movement undid Jim Crow and our good old tradition of racial segregation. Trump and his team clearly understand the value of an enemy to unify the base.
Here, for instance, are more words from Miller, the soon-to-be White House chief of staff for policy: Trump, he said, has fought for our right “to live in a country where criminal gangs cannot just cross our border and rape and murder with impunity. Think about how corrupt and hateful and evil a system is that allows gangs to come into this country and rape and murder little girls. I’m not just saying that. You’ve read the stories. It happens every day!”
Be afraid, America! Be very afraid! Our new enemy is still people of color, but now they’re flowing across our porous border. They’re also . . . fascinatingly, occupying swaths of land God had given to Israel. The irony of Miller’s concern about the fictional deaths of little American girls is the Trump team’s beyond-Biden embrace of the actual U.S.-funded slaughter of Palestinians, including multi-thousands of children.
America is for Americans and Planet Earth is for white people. As Michel Moushabeck wrote at Truthout: “President-elect Trump even went as far as saying President Biden was ‘like a Palestinian,’ using the word as a slur or an insult to prove his greater love of Israel.”
Yeah, the irony is almost beyond comprehension. Biden’s enabling of Israel’s assault on Gaza – and beyond! – is small potatoes compared to what Trump would do. Trump’s anti-Biden rhetoric continued. Acknowledging that Israel has no intention of instituting a ceasefire, he said: “. . .you should let them go and let them finish the job. (Biden) doesn’t want to do it. He has become like a Palestinian. But they don’t like him because he is a very bad Palestinian. He is a weak one.”
And here we come to the crippling paradox of the Democratic Party. They’re wedded to militarism and the military-industrial complex as much as the Republicans, but they purport to acknowledge both-sides of these global issues. They speak with responsible lesser-evilism, you might say. Thus: “Israel has the right to defend itself.” But (unrelatedly): “Too many Palestinians are dying.”
The Dems have trapped themselves in what might amount to a neoliberal cluelessness. In essence, they stand for nothing – or at least for not much, as compared to the Republicans under Trump. As Marianne Williamson put it recently: “There are millions of politically homeless people out there; no, they’re not Trump supporters, but they wouldn’t call themselves Democrats anymore either.”
Can the Democratic Party transcend lesser-evilism? Can it actually present a future to the American public that transcends militarism and endless war, that celebrates multiculturalism, that goes beyond “securing” the border and actually embraces the entirety of Planet Earth, that explores the ecological necessity of saving our planet . . . and securing our future?
I ask these questions in the wake of Trump’s victory. The takeaway for the rest of us goes well beyond the need for coming up with a better political strategy: leaning further left, learning further right. Trump has offered his base a spiritual sanctuary, a home allegedly secure from perceived (and invented) enemies. I’m not suggesting that the Democrats need to invent a different enemy but, rather, something far, far more complex than that. The Democrats – or whatever political convergence takes shape during the Trump era – must create a political home for Americans who love the whole planet.
This may sound idealistic (i.e., crazy), but the Trump takeover of American politics shows, I believe, that now is the time for serious political change. The Democrats’ strategy of linking economic liberalism to a trillion-dollar annual military budget – especially as the climate crisis manifests itself ever more consequentially every year – has plunged the country into a void of cynicism.
I know that politics is mostly about money, and sheer idealism isn’t going to gain a movement political traction. But all I can do is repeat what I just said: We must create a political home for Americans who love the whole planet.
What do you think? Is this possible?
Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, and his newly released album of recorded poetry and art work, Soul Fragments.
