By Duane Campbell,
Mexican American Digital History Project.
Trump’s Racially Divisive
Politics Must Be Exposed and Opposed !
The intolerant agitation promoted by Republican Donald Trump and support
of its substance by most Republican candidates is a call to the “silent white
majority” and a demand that 11 million immigrants be deported. This campaign is a dangerous and divisive
racial message. It must be vigorously opposed.
We know these campaigns to be dangerous. It is not only the ranting of a
fringe right.
If you cannot vote, you can still campaign
for candidates and assist opposing campaigns with literature distribution. One of the most effective things you can do
is to work with campaigns and to talk with your friends, neighbors, and
families.
Trump’s popularity among Republican voters has dramatically risen in the
polls. He leads the Republican Party
campaign for president and determines the terms of the debate . Cruz
and Rubio have a similar policy on immigration, Build walls, deport people. This fear mongering political message has
found a very receptive base within our society among xenophobic and angry conservative
sectors.
As prior posts have demonstrated, the Trump– Cruz Republican arguments
are factually incorrect and the proposed agenda is impossible to implement
short of establishing an authoritarian police state never before seen in the US.
How will he deport 11 million? And, how
will he round up the estimated 40% of all of the workers who arrived with
a valid visa, but overstayed their work or tourist visa?
Let us be clear. The attack on Mexican American children by Donald
Trump is impossible to implement within the constitutional framework of the US.
There is no such thing as an anchor baby. They are U.S. citizens.
There is no such thing as “birth right citizenship,” they are U.S.
citizens.
This is Dog Whistle Politics, as described well in Dog Whistle
Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the
Middle Class, by Ian Haney López (2014).
It is remarkable and disturbing that the US press is treating these incendiary
remarks as legitimate political
discourse.
Instead, these are examples of strategic racism, which is a system
of racial oppression created and enforced because it benefits the over class,
in this case the many billionaire funders of the Republican Party.
This scapegoating campaign is a
product of strategic racism, including a complex structure of
institutions and individuals from police and sheriffs to immigration
authorities and anti-immigrant activists, Tea Party activists, militia
and elected officials and their support networks. These groups foster and
promote interracial conflict and job competition as a strategy to keep wages
and benefits low and to promote their continuing white supremacy in the nation.
Mexicans, Mexican Americans and other Latinos have good reason
to be concerned about the mobilization of
racist movements by these harsh
and xenophobic campaigns. During the 1930’s some 1,000,000 Mexicans
were deported in response to similar campaigns, including over 500,000 US
citizens, and an additional 1,000,000
Mexicans were deported in Operation Wetback in the 1950's. Trump proposes that
it should happen again.
In 1994 California
passed an anti immigrant Prop. 187 parts of which became federal law and now
lead to the deportation of millions. We
need to recognize the potential advantage of racist scapegoating as revealed in
the Republican promoted Proposition 187
initiative passed by 2/3 of California voters in 1994. The campaign produced a large turnout of right
wing voters. Components of Prop. 187
became national law in 1996 as a part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation act of 1996,
and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
Both passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. They are Public Law 104-208.
In 1994, California had a
population that was 56.3 % White, 26.3 %
Latino, 9.4% Asian, 7.4 % African American, and 0.6% other. However,
according to exit polls, the voters in this election were 80% white, 9% Latino,
7 % African American, and 4 % Asian. Exit polls show that Latinos voted against
Prop. 187 by 3 to 1, African Americans split their vote 50-50, and the Anglo
electorate passed the proposition by over 60%. The large turnout of white voters for this
divisive initiative passed the divisive
Prop. 187 and gave a substantial electoral victory for Republican Governor Wilson in his re-election
campaign. Racism works. This mobilization of the white vote is the vote
Trump and the other Republicans are seeking.
The purpose of
Trump’s intolerant bombasts are not to develop a policy -- it is to capture and
exploit the anxiety and emotion of a particular sub-set of voters: xenophobic
Republicans and the hard Tea Party Right. Trump freely uses the stab-in-the-back rhetoric beloved of fascists
in other eras. As Linguist George Lakoff
says,
“He knows how to play the media and he knows
how to insult people.”
To date this hate filled campaign has succeeded in winning a short-term
victory while ignoring the long-range consequences of such bigotry. The
devastating legacy of the Trump campaigns is the mobilization of a harsh,
retaliatory, right wing. There is a
significant increase in voters on the right of the Republican Party.
In response to the 1994 attack on the Mexican American community,
Latinos organized to vote in large numbers for future elections. Republicans became a
small minority party in California. The California population (not its voters)
is currently Latino 37 %, White 37 %, Black 6%, Asian 14%, Native American 2 %,
mixed race 4 %.
On
Sept. 3, candidate Bernie Sanders said in Muscatine, Iowa, speaking about
Donald Trump:
Candidates
running for president should not stoop to racism and demagoguery to win votes.
. . This country has experienced racism for hundreds of years. I would have
hoped that by the year 2015 leading candidates for president like Mr. Trump
would campaign on their ideas as to how they can address our serious problems,
and not by trying to divide the country with racist and demagogic appeals.
Clearly Trump is scapegoating the Hispanic community.
Politicians using divisive racial politics must be defeated. To do
that, all eligible must register and vote.
We must reach out and register Latino voters.
It is important for all to join this campaign. If you cannot vote, you can still campaign for
candidates and assist campaign with literature distribution. One of the most effective things you can do
is to work with campaigns and to talk with your friend, neighbors, and
families.
Low voter turnout among Hispanics
gives the radical right an opportunity to win.
As the Pew Research Center has pointed out, “Overall, 48% of Hispanic eligible voters turned out to vote in 2012,
down from 49.9% in 2008. By comparison, the 2012 voter turnout rate among
blacks was 66.6% and among whites was 64.1%, both significantly higher than the
turnout rate among Hispanics.” (2013)
If we want
to preserve a democratic society. We must register and get out the vote. Our families and our community depend upon
you.
.
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