(Photo: Andy Matthews/Flickr/CC)
By Ernie McCray
I keep hearing that Donald Trump is appealing to angry white men and I say, of course he is. He’s an angry white man. Who else is he going to appeal to?
Truth is, though, a lot of those angry white men should be angry with themselves for supporting and voting for people who mean them absolutely no good, politicians who do nothing to better their lives. People who, in actuality, do all they can to see that the president doesn’t help them either.
But, anyway, those aren’t the angry white men this writing is about. It’s those out-and-out racist angry white men I see on TV at Trump’s rallies who’ve captured my attention. I’ve spent a month short of 78 years dealing with angry white men like them and they make me jumpy, to say the least.
They are angry, like so many of their ancestors, at the very thought of people who are darker than them being equal to them.
They would have been very agreeable with the way race relations used to be. They would have loved George Wallace with his “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” wishes and dreams. They’d find scriptures to rationalize: the lynchings; the burnings; the bombings; the disenfranchising; the beatings; the mobbings; the siccing of the dogs; the flushing of the firehoses; the tarring and feathering; the laws that made mockeries of equality for all …
But in their era in the country’s evolvement a man hasn’t been able to boldly vent his anger the way it was done in the “Good Old Days.” And over the last few decades other than instigating an atrocity or two here or there, every now and then, Trump’s angry white men have resided in the world of the silent majority wherein they’ve: seethed at the sights of mosques being built; cringed as Chicano and African American families moved in next door or down the street from them; pouted at the very notion of affirmative action; swooned when the confederate flag was lowered and removed; cursed the “political correctness” that has caused them to hold their pent up feelings in.
And then along comes Donald Trump, running for the top office in the land, rhapsodizing about his dick and his hands, talking “Yo mama” trash like a junior high bully, saying what the angry white men I’m referring to have held close to their hearts for years. He lessens their fears. Tells them it’s all right to let off a little steam and kick a little ass, lamenting in prime time that “nobody wants to hurt each other anymore.” That has got to be absolutely the last thing they need to hear.
They/we are not served by a man who would-be president who speaks of his dissenters as the reason America is not only no longer great but weak.
Trump takes them/us down a perilous road when he pines for days when noisy demonstrators would be carried out of a political rally on stretchers and says: “If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Knock the hell out of them. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.”
When he says of a protestor “I’d like to punch him in the face” someone just might, as one of his supporters did, sucker-punch a black protestor and then declare “Next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” Is that not chilling to the bone?
Sights at his rallies are nothing short of frightening and obscene: a young black woman being surrounded and shoved aggressively; a black man being tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground; immigration activists being shoved and stripped of their signs; a Latino being knocked down and kicked; “White power” and “Go back to Africa” sentiments being yelled in the ruckus.
Our very history tells us that there’s no limit to the harm angry white men such as these can cause in our society when they’re incited and emboldened, when they feel that their actions are condoned.
I know. I remember some angry white men who set a house on fire with me and my mom and our cousin in it because it wasn’t frowned upon to do such a thing when a black person moved into a white neighborhood in Detroit, at that time, back in ’49.
Trump is opening up avenues leading to outrages similar to that as he openly and proudly speaks to getting rid of immigrants and Muslims and building walls to keep Mexicans and Central Americans from coming to our country. “Black Lives Matter,” doesn’t resonate with him.
Trump’s followers have been like a smoldering campfire and here he comes with a can of gasoline.
But this angry white man along with the angry white men he has so inspired are offering us Americans an opportunity to decide whether we want to stay fixed on a path of distrusting and pulling away from each other based on our colors and beliefs or come together in all our diversity and create a true democracy where all lives are respected.
Our children are watching. How we respond to the challenges Donald Trump has laid before us will be critical to how they get along down the line. Our greatest gift to them during these horribly troubling times would be to crush this man at the polls if he becomes a candidate for the presidency.
We’ve got a lot of work to do with no time to waste in getting started.
Ernie McCray
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Ernie, You wrote a very insightful piece. I’m not one of those angry white guys, although I’m angry at white guy George W. Bush – the war criminal. The fact I taught African-American history for almost 30 years at a S.U.N.Y. community college is central to the orientation of my book “Blue Eyes On African-American History: A Learning Adventure.” — Yours in solidarity. —- Philip Reiss
Thanks, Philip. We must keep the faith. I’ll get your book.
Ernie, you hit the nail on the head when you say the pent-up, silent majority angry white men have been now given a new lease on expressing their frustrated pent-up desires in real life active terms. Trump rallies have become a rallying point for people wanting to act out their violent feelings. I think anti-Trump people should just stay away because Trump has created a volatile atmosphere where people go seeking trouble and with Trump egging them on trouble is what’s going to happen. The best bet is to stay away and not give Trump supporters any excuse for expressing their feelings. Let them go back to being the silent majority again if that is not too late.
Mr. Lawrence, do you really think not confronting Trump’s minions will change their behavior? That they will simply disappear again?
To demonstrate with openness and love, in the image of Gandhi or Rev. King, is much better than leaving them alone in hopes that they will.
I’ll be on the line when Trump comes to SD; I invite you to join me.
Not confronting Trump’s minions will give them no one to fight.
But don’t we hafta BE there to show them we’re not confronting them?
I understand your idea of non-confrontation (after all, I referenced Dr. King) but not giving them a target will not stop them from lashing out. And anyway, 80% of life is showing up, remember.
Be prepared to chant “Soap and Work!”
You all incorrectly label them the “silent majority.” They are NOT a majority. Trump has the support of maybe 30-35 percent of Republican voters. The rest of the party is terrified of him and his violent angry supporters. Donald Trump has divided the Republican Party between a core group of vile white supremacists and other vile neo-conservatives who are terrified of the nation transitioning away from the Protestant capitalistic hegemony of the past (who likely also share the ethnocentric feelings of their counterparts yet pretend otherwise). Trump’s Republican opponents oppose him because of his openness about his belief in the white Protestant hegemony. They like the hegemony. But they never profess to such feelings.
with all do respect Mr McCray – I disagree.
Mr Trump is getting the support of many americans of all genders, races & persuasions – who flat out are tired of being lied to by politicians who ask for their vote – then ignore their (& our countries) interests.
No other country in the world elects politicians who have such disdain for the electorate majority & the interests of the country itself.
contrary of the dividers in the mainstream “media” – employed by the greedy 1% – both Sanders & Trump supporters share a common & significant understanding – the interests of the country & the citizen majority are UNREPRESENTED.
the current president – who certainly could deliver someone’s speech – ran on a platform of CHANGE & middle class relief. then his first order of business was rehiring the clinton cabinet – the professional – 1%er bankster pandering, job exporters – who LARGELY facilitated this MESS.
Jobs gone. Hopes dashed. People scared.
generations of debt accumulated – how obscene is that? obligating / enslaving future generations – so the already super rich …can get even richer…
Change – right. nice BS slogan…
i could go on for pages, but the bottom line is do we resist going down the drain comfortably – or support the candidates who RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM & are committed to, & capable of addressing it?
if it somehow doesn’t work out – what did we really loose – the ease of going down the drain peacefully – without putting in the effort – to save ourselves, our families, our country…
Trump, Sanders, or Stein – hope for true change… begins with resistance to the pandering to the greedy few.
the rest of the field – slightly different versions of – more of the same old, same old – servants to the gold & those who control it – just like lawyers are trained to do…
anyway, thanks for the opportunity to share. please consider your position carefully – the current president has amassed more usa debt than EVERY previous usa president – COMBINED. we cannot sustain the current rate of decline for much longer.
is this unmitigated greed, it’s resulting destruction & enslavement (borrower slave t the lender) – really the legacy you want to pass on to future generations?
Vaya con Dios.
One could legitimately argue that both Sanders and Trump have awoken and given voice to a HUGE middle working class and lower educated class of voters who have become justifiably DISILLUSIONED and ANGRY over a crushing decades long economic stagnation and social immobility.
In confronting bluntly this serious societal dilemma, Sanders’ and Trump’s tones/styles are obviously dramatically different – with Sanders as the archetype, wise ‘statesman’ and Trump the blustering, dominating ‘populist’ – but their messages are in many ways similar.
In essence, both candidates are saying that much more is happening to our society that the rise of some dissatisfied voters. Namely, we are on the edge of a ‘revolutionary class war’ affecting both party’s electorates.
Trump’s and Sanders’ broad range of working class voters are outraged. They can no longer see possibilities for a better life from their own efforts. They feel hopelessly trapped in a spiral of low paying jobs without the resources and/or training to improve their lot in the face of an overflowing tide of free market global forces. In short, the “American Dream” has indeed become a horrible “DREAM,” if it not always was an illusion … encompassing endemic job insecurity, mounting exorbitant student debt and severe shortage of good entry job prospects.
The ‘holier than thou’ greedy establishment doctrinal elites of both parties are not recognizing at their peril that a new class war is emerging. A war where god, guns and guts are of much less interest to middle/lower working classes than economic justice and security. The class war that Mitt Romney unleashed in 2012 and arrogantly dismissed as unseemly for Americans erupted upon us in full force.
Economic insecurity – not lower taxes for the rich or bible preaching candidates or school prayer or abortus – is the primary issue behind the pain of just how rotton American daily life has become. Candidates of the elites like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Hillary Clinton have ignored this pain and are being cast aside by the working and younger classes of each party as corrupted, ineffective participants in a corrupted system being sucked dry by the rich and powerful.
Trump’s followers support protectionism for good jobs and a return to a broad-based manufacturing capability and knowhow; they are for a sound, broad basic health care system and social security system; they are disturbed by the ethnic changes in America; they are more reserved about America’s military and political regime interventions abroad and pretensions to be the world’s policeman and protector; they are not driven by Cruz’s social conservative evangelical agenda.
Much of Sanders’ policy program and follower support is similar to that of Trump’s. The establishment candidate, Hillary, her Wall Street self-enriching speeches; her support of costly failed regime changes in Iraq, Libya, etc.; her judgment failures in promptly realizing certain trade deals (e.g.,the TPP) and fossil fuel energy projects (e.g., fracturing, the Keystone Pipeline) are bad ideas.
Irregardless of whether Sanders or Trump are elected, hopefully over time they will be seen as innovators that provided a sustainable, strong platform or bridge for a new coalition of young and working class voters to effectively come up for their social-economic interests. Hopefully, they will be remembered for refocusing America’s attention to its gross internal breakdowns and challenges (climate change, infrastructure and education, manufacturing, insanely high prison rates, right to basis health care for all, etc.) as opposed to far away adventures and perpetual wars enormously costly and wasteful in money and human terms.
The beginning of decline of every great Empire has always been the inability to confront and reverse course on its own INTERNAL weaknesses and excesses.
Frank, your astute comments about the similarities between Trump and Bernie supporters are right on! Both left and right have come to the realization that they are being shafted in economic terms by the current establishment and by the huge amounts of money going to fighting pointless wars. Both have wised up to trade deals that only benefit US corporations and not US workers. They are dissimilar when it comes to immigration, but movements on both sides of the political spectrum seem to have more in common than they have differences.
Well put Ernie . . . all of it.
Though you seemed to have flushed a couple angry (discontented) white men, tJ and Frank out of the brush, and they pulled your knowledgable article into their own court with, “the ‘American Dream’ has indeed become a horrible ‘DREAM,” and “just how rotton American daily life has become” and “No other country in the world elects politicians who have such disdain for the electorate majority & the interests of the country itself” is just a lie. My time in the Peace corps – South America – and only-scant awareness of the political and social problems throughout the rest of the world – especially Africa – makes those absurdities tangible.
Their assumption that because Trump and Sanders have the same objectives won’t matter in who gets elected, is absurd, and it misses your point. I’ll put it my way . . . solving our problems by fomenting hatred and intolerance is the last things we should do as human beings, and as Americans. For that reason alone, Trump is un-American.
As you put so well, Ernie,
“Our children are watching. How we respond to the challenges Donald Trump has laid before us will be critical to how they get along down the line. Our greatest gift to them during these horribly troubling times would be to crush this man at the polls if he becomes a candidate for the presidency.”
Mr. Deason,
I couldn’t agree more with what Ernie is beautifully saying, particularly his critical expose of Trump whom I consider an egocentric, authoritative rabble-rouser … with the typical character traits of a narcissistic sociopath. He’s a deeply shallow man exploiting and stirring peoples’ anxieties. I’ve said so much in past writings on SDFP and other media outlets.
I’ve been 100% behind Bernie Sanders from the start. Bernie is authentic. He speaks to the better part of our souls that Ernie also speaks to so eloquently. If he is not nominated, I’ll vote for Hillary … although I’m don’t like inbred family dynasties controlling our governing system and Hillary’s love affairs with the MONEY and MILITARY POWER establishments. The irony is that most polls show that Bernie would ‘crush’ Trump by a much larger margin than the uninspiring establishment candidate, Hillary, who has also a problem with telling the truth (as does Trump).
As I’ve said before, Trump is a societal DIVIDER who separates the world into ‘winners and losers.’ He exalts strengths and speaks contempt for weakness. Trump’s authoritative ethnocentrism does attract an alarming number of radical nut cases, including white supremists.
But I wouldn’t categorize the millions of Trump followers,a huge +-35% of Republican primary voters to date, as all retrograde racists or political radicals. Yes, a niche of Trump followers are extreme conservatives about immigrants, the poor, calling latter ‘losers’ who profit as free-loaders’ from their money (an ugly message Paul Ryan and his ilk enjoy propagating). So hard has our society become since Reagan’s time of propagandizing the ‘trickle-down,’ ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ economic paradigm’
I think the majority of Trump’s insurgent supporters and ALL of Bernie’s followers feel rightly threatened by Wall Street, that their interests and job security are being overruled by business and billionaire interests. The’re disgusted with a MONEY-corrupt political and economic system that step-by-step has been marginalizing and impoverishing working class welfare the past 35-40 years.
I sense, as do most, that the depth of this DIVIDE within BOTH parties has NEVER been seen before. It’s a development that is far, far more serious than the Ross Perot or George Wallace precedents. Trump’s followers are quite broad and large in number including evangelicals, conservatives in the South, and workers in the North – unsatisfied Republicans who stepped out of the political system long ago who accept his chaotic inconsistencies and outrageous, bullying, degrading remarks.
That is why I hope the Democrats can for change GET the VOTE OUT for the Democratic nominee, hopefully Bernie but probably Hillary. Historically, helped by our corrupt gerrymandering system and passive Democratic voter interest, the Republicans have trounced the Democrats with their voter turnout.
The following essay published in the International NY Times International today expresses poignantly the poisoning dialogue and polarization unraveling our social-political-cultural system. Trump is but an inevitable symbol of that destabilization. What are the lessons we have learned? What other lessons should we hopefully learn?
_______________________________________________________________________
“LEARNING LESSONS FROM OUTRAGE” By Charles M. Blow, March 23,2016
There is so much we Americans have learned from this painful election season and the rise of a demagogic real estate developer.
We have learned that a human branding machine who grew up in the shadows and spotlight of NY City’s cutthroat media knows intuitively how to exploit the media.We have learned that too many in the media are ever so willing to be exploited if the exploitation is mutual and money is to be made.
We have learned what conditions make the prime environment for the rise of a demagogue: disaffection, demographic change, the demise of hope and opportunity and the dislocation of traditional power and privilege from automatic inheritance of prosperity.
We have learned that diverse, dangerous leaders don’t necessarily rise because of stirring oration or a clear and compelling vision. They can be quirky, disarming and idiosyncratic, with a vague, hollow message that says little even as it promises much.
We have learned the dangers of doubting the depravity and desperation of some who would follow such a man despite, or possibly even because of, his offensive rhetoric and outrageous policies. We have learned how much ugliness exists in this country. and what it looks like when it finds a voice, a leader and a reason to gather and unite.
We have learned that the Republican establishment have no clue who the Republican base is anymore, or if they do, they thought wrongly that they could control them by feeding them crumbs of obstruction and vague aspirationalism from their table of excess. In fact, that base has been gorging itself on fear and anger, vileness and the possibility of violence.
…….
But for all those looking on in horror and disbelief, I hope we have learned something else, something great.
I hope we learn to constantly center the ideal at that core of the current offense: enlightenment, equality and idealism.
I hope that we learn that progress is not an unfailingly upward, inexorably positive movement, but an awkward and clumsy dance in which we lurch forward three steps and stumble back two
I hope we learn that citizenship and comfort in a free society is not free. It comes at a cost. You must work to grow and maintain our liberty, because there are forces that would undo and dismantle those liberties. You must stay awake and engaged, informed and involved if we are to continue to move out of darkness and into light.
I hope we learn that if one is not actively working to dismantle oppressive forces and inclinations in oneself and in society, one’s silence and inaction provide support for their continuation and prosperity. Inertia is no respecter of ideology. It can move right just as easily as it can move left. It can move toward the better just as easily as toward the worse.
There is no moment in a republic when there is a lull in the fight. The battles always rage. The enemy stays busy. Nothing that is won stays won without vigilant protection. We, as a country, again find ourselves standing at the precipice, staring into the darkness of the void, and we must fight our way back from it.
And this is not just about being against a real estate developer. It’s more. It’s about being for something: nobility, honor and character, righteousness, civility and togetherness. We have to decide who we are as a country, not as an opposition force but as a positive, proactive force, and use all levers of power to which we have access to bring our vision of America into reality.
The rise of the real estate developer has drawn into sharp relief the idea that doing nothing and expecting to preserve or extend progress isn’t an option.
____________________________________________________________________
Frank, No doubt the media is making money off of Trump and Trump has been exploiting the media’s attraction to his outrageousness. His degradation of the culture is just a reflection of the degradation of the entertainment culture in movies and TV. Even a PG rated movie like “Sisters” is loaded with 4 letter words. That has become the norm these days, not reasoned dialogue. Action movies and vulgarity have become the new average sensibility.
Well Earnie, look what you have done. What a tremendously relevant and worthwhile post you have presented on your site. You have cleverly awakened a number of readers you didn’t even know you had. Also, it is good to know there are followers who give a “right-on” to your thoughts and possess the knowledge and empathy to see beyond the sensationalism of the “Trumpeteers.” To the shouts of “Take our country back” and “What the American people want,” I say: “Take it back from who?” and “The ‘American people’ consists of more than just angry White people, anti-abortionists, Bible readers and conservative thinkers!” Today, the major burden facing the USA is its failure to recognize our most lethal current issue is White racism. The fact is that the KERNER REPORT (a summary of the causes of rioting in Watts, Detroit and other major USA cities; check it out on Google), established the following facts:
What White Americans have never fully understood — but
what Black folks can never forget — is that White
society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White
institutions created it, White institutions maintain
it and White institutions condone it.
“However, the positive thing about it all, is we can bask in the glory of words off the script of a 1969 all-school play presented by the Umoja club (a Black student organization open to ALL STUDENTS) at San Diego High School, that so vividly speaks to today’s discussion: “We are finally forcing the ‘friendly fakers’ to show their hand!” And in conclusion, I want to point out that if America is to remain true to its creed, it MUST demonstrate ALL men (it’s citizens) are created equal, there is liberty and justice FOR ALL and respect for SEPERATION of church and state!!! Good day now!!!
As we used to say, “Right on, my brother”
OMG, CharlieMack! You’ve really started something here! So, here’s my two cents worth: Everybody is right at some level. Truly Trump and Sanders have dug into the soil of “The American People” like double-clawed plows, and, lo and behold, there are the worms! Some are good ones–some are destructive ones–but one thing’s for sure: there are a LOT of them!
Got that right.