“We must not be misled by left-wing incompetent news media that, day after day, feed us a diet of fantasy telling us we are bigots, racists and hate-mongers.”
George Wallace
“Bigotry is a disease of the mind – a poisonous infection unbounded by age time or space. It is transmissible, capable of being passed down from elders to child, from community to community, from racial and religious kin to racial and religious kin.”
Colbert King
Perhaps the most damaging falsehood we accepted as part of 21st century conventional wisdom was that far more of white America emerged from the Civil Rights battles of the 60s shamed and morally chagrined than actually did. We predicated the foundations of our national story, and future societal aspirations on the notion an overwhelming white majority was shamed into understanding how wrong it was to abide institutional racism. At the very least, we assumed, most really believed the law needed to be applied equally or the hypocrisy would simply be too ugly to look past, too blatant to permit other political goals to move forward in its shadow. It now appears certain we were mistaken.
Worse, in according so many the benefit of the doubt they neither deserved or really cared to receive, we established a false complacency that simply ticked away through the years as they added up cumulative grievance they would either go to their grave possessing or unleash if the opportunity presented itself. That day came in November of 2016, and decades of unrequited bigotry and resentment has come spewing forth unabated, indeed fully amplified by the POTUS and the GOP.
On every front we thought had been decided there is now what amounts to open efforts at nullification. Voter suppression, outrageous and unprosecuted police misconduct, a plethora of discrimination initiatives pursued under the sham of religious freedom, “self defense” statutes to protect those who outright murder minorities they are scared silly of, housing discrimination, business disenfranchisement, the list goes on and on. Moreover, there is more than enough flat out racism, no longer hidden in the shadows, or even dog whistled in ugly code words, to match the surge in institutional bigotry.
Trump as a symptom or Trump as the cause and effect; it probably doesn’t matter much. The pivotal question is does this reflect the dying gasp of a couple of generations who stewed at the kitchen table but kept their mouths shut in public, acceding to the dictates of “political correctness” until they were liberated by the ugliest Presidential campaign in modern American history? Or is this a malignancy that has spread throughout and afflicts, not just the sons and daughters of Wallace partisans, but grandkids as well? Is Trump the death throes of our wretched past, or the hideous specter of our dysfunctional future? Is he merely the walking dead spouting vile ignorance and nastiness that won’t survive him, or is he injecting future generations with virulence that will addle their plans and aspirations?
Regardless of the answer to that critical question, the accoutrements surrounding this massive out-of-the-closet movement are all very familiar. Pushing back the boundaries of what constitutes bigotry has always been a racist preoccupation, as has creating the false equivalence necessary to debate what should already be established. Trumpism is all about both of those regressive pursuits. Trump’s smothering embrace of law enforcement is more wedge strategy than anything else. When his wretched core thinks of who a cop’s natural enemy is they have only one skin color in mind. Ditto when the President drones on about our ICE heroes. And when the unrepentant draft evader wraps himself in the blood and sacrifice of America’s service people, there is nothing coy about the subtext. That hate crimes skyrocket in every host area after a Trump rally provides all the clarity one requires about both message and audience.
Of course the internet provides the coarsest and most direct evidence of the liberated legions of white intolerance. I long ago moved past my shock and dismay at the memes old friends felt comfortable sending out under their tag. Awful stuff leaving little to the imagination, usually tied together by a nasty intonation underlining the us vs. them thesis that runs throughout Trumpism. Most worrisome about the internet is its grasp of our youth’s attention, and potential to shape their perspective. Daily evidence of inane yet frightening examples of groups of teens exhibiting Bundist tendencies speaks to the fragility of America’s future.
Years ago I was playing in an impromptu golf tournament with a friend I thought I knew pretty well. He was a funny guy of quick wit and an enjoyable nature. We were the odd foursome in the group of perhaps 15 after another friend bowed out at the last minute, so only three of us would play together, my friend riding in his cart with a buddy, who he obviously went way back with. As we began playing, and casually conversing on the tee box as we waited to hit, my friend felt unguarded enough to start telling his best n*****r jokes. I was startled and fully unable to do anything other than stare at him awkwardly, suggesting we change the subject. Seizing on my unease, he decided to start ribbing me about my reticence to find humor in racist abasement, which his pal seemed to enjoy. Still feeling some level of shame I didn’t initially call him to task, I viewed his prodding as a new opportunity to assert decency into the situation and told him I found no humor in such idiocy and to STFU about it. The rest of our round was tense and unenjoyable. Moreover, our once thriving friendship deteriorated afterward, which I have zero regrets about.
The point here is threefold. One, anybody who would like to wager their 401K on how my former friend voted in 2016 please contact me. Two, is there any mystery what kind of narrative he listened to around the dinner table growing up? Finally, this was close to 20 years ago, and we both had very young children. I don’t have much doubt what his children heard while eating their supper about America’s first black President, who, back when their comedian father was performing his impromptu routine, was still an unfathomable scenario. And remember, this all takes place in swanky, ever-more-liberal Northern Virginia, not the Deep South or flyover country.
Many of us were naive in believing that part of America’s national identity is a collective ability to learn from the lessons our mistakes teach us and move on. That proposition is being sorely tested at this moment. Trumpism is regressive in all of its elements, but none more so than its ceaseless embrace of ugly racial sensibilities once thought dead and buried. There is a building panic in America that unvaccinated children are going to create a resurgence of childhood diseases we thought were whipped. If only that same manic vigilance was on hand to protect our kids from the ugly bigotry we once assumed they’d never have to ponder. BC