“Trump, racism and the Republicans Party”

Pastor Rasheed Baaith
Pastor Rasheed Baaith

“Trump, racism and the Republicans Party”

By Pastor Rasheed Z Baaith

“…they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.” (Jeremiah 14:14b)

None of us should be professing surprise or denying the vehement racism of Donald Trump’s remarks about the judge of Mexican heritage presiding over a case in which Trump has a high stake.  The intent of what Trumps said and why it was said is clear to anyone who heard or read the comments.

Trump has, since the onset of his campaign to secure the Republican nomination for President, appealed to the deep streak of racism still alive in a good number of Americans.  He has stroked it, inflamed it and exploited it each day of his campaign.  His most consistent strategy is to divide us through color, religion, ethnicity and gender. His racism and misogyny is obvious and unapologetic. And any person but especially a person of color who denies that Trump is a racist is both intellectually dishonest and morally lacking. This talk by some of Trump’s remarks being misconstrued or taken out of context is insulting.

For the Republican Party leadership to endorse such an obvious bigot tells a lot about what the Republican Party’s vision of American is.  They are politicians who want to win elections at any cost, particularly Presidential elections.  If they can win the Office supporting a virulent racist like Trump, they are more than prepared to do so.  All of their talk about wanting to expand the tent and be more inclusive is just talk and valueless babble.  It is a kind of verbal diarrhea.  How can any per-son of color or any woman be a member of a party whose Presidential candidate should wear a swastika on the front of his shirt and accepts the support of David Duke?

Presidents put persons around them who think as they think.  Which means Trump’s cabinet will be filled with those whose thinking is like his; as will those he appoints to the Supreme Court and those who will administrate whatever policies he puts in place.

Even more Trump’s campaign is showing a brand of campaigning we’ve not seen since the last century particularly in the South when politicians got elected by seeing who could holler “Nigger” the loudest or whose election slogan was “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”  It’s the same game in a new package.

Some will think this is reactionary hyperbole.  Keep watching and listening because things will get worse.  What Trumps understands that most of us don’t is that he is using the Republican Party’s old Southern Strategy playbook. Although Nixon is given most of the responsibility for employing the Southern Strategy” because he certainly popularized it, he didn’t originate it. The Republican Party did.

Kevin Phillips was Nixon’s political strategist and in a New York Times interview in 1970, Phillips said, “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the south, the sooner Negro-phobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”  He proved to be prophetical.

In short, the “Southern Strategy” is based on polarizing “ethnic voting.” Then as now the Republican Party was playing the color card and then as now, the Republican Party wanted to win more than they wanted anything else.  No matter what that might mean for America.

Today’s Republican Party is a long way from the party of Lincoln. They were after the Civil War the bastion of Black voters or from being the party that cast more votes for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other Civil Rights legislation than the Democratic Party to now being the party of Trump.  That’s a long way to fall in a de evolvement caused by moral bankruptcy.

Finally there’s this: there is an aura of violence around Donald Trump and on many of those who support him. They would like nothing more than fighting in a new Civil War. They may just get it.  Think about it.

About Carma Henry 24455 Articles
Carma Lynn Henry Westside Gazette Newspaper 545 N.W. 7th Terrace, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33311 Office: (954) 525-1489 Fax: (954) 525-1861

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