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Writer's picturePhilip Drucker

Communique 10-1-20 "A Brief History of Racism in Modern American Politics & Why You May be a Racist"

By Philip Drucker

A Brief History of Racism in Modern American Politics & Why You May be A Racist

Isn’t it time we began talking about time? I believe so for unlike past generations, we in 2020 find ourselves running out of time. Time to act to preserve and continue our most noble of political experiments, a nation of individuals when left to their own devices and with the help of one person one vote democracy as our core and central value and with the ability to keep our elected officials in check by voting them out of office and whatever delusional power for power’s sake (and hence useless) ego tripping and not so magical and certainly not a mystery agenda of self-interest focused on servicing the needs of the wealthy and the few in return for dark, darker and the darkest of the dark monies, some of which will result in undisclosed campaign donations and expenditures in the coffers of the happily bought and sold bobbing monkey-heads to pretend to live up to their designated “the honorable” titles, but in fact, few do.

I’m not suggesting there has never been a time in our past where there hasn’t been corruption aimed at times squarely to subvert the public weal and largely to benefit the rich and wealthy. The lazy and the ugly, the wicked and the wanton, the religious zealots and the racists among us. Those who make up the “silent majority” as if this group could ever keep their mouths shut.

To adequately trace the history and roots of our current and urgent dilemma, we must go back to the mythical time of Richard Nixon (and slightly before), the disposed and disgraced champion and where the sick, twisted and disgusting among us got an open door into the world of modern politics and boy did they walk through culminating in the greatest immediate threat to democratic way of life and leading directly to our lack of time.

In short, time-line of important events looks something like this. In 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Congress pass the Voting Rights Act of 1968. Suddenly, the voting right guaranteed to the newly freed slaves under the 15th Amendment are finally fulfilled and African Americans in record numbers, mostly in the South, vote in what can only be described as in the first free and fair election of their time. And vote they did in record numbers predictably and shortly followed thereafter by the below the Mason-Dixon line democrats losing it.

Nixon sensing an opportunity to pick up votes, taps professional bad guy (Roger Stone before there was a Roger Stone) Lee Atwell to design what comes to be known as the “Southern Strategy”. The Strategy entailed offering the former racist democrats who are suddenly feeling a bit left out, to join the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, and adopt racism as if not an outright and blatant party plank, at least we won’t do anything to dissuade you from following, if not encouraging your “right” to pursue a white as white can be America. Oh, and the Jews? You can keep on making up conspiracy stories, some started about 400 years or so ago about how the Jewish bankers rule the world, require the blood of Christian children for their rituals, and yes, please keep hating on them too.

For those of you who are unaware, this is the basis of the QAnon movement of lemmings dedicated to helping Trump deceive and defeat the “Deep State”. Throw in the word Illuminati every now and then and yes, you too can be another charter member of the I’m too stupid to think for myself and therefore, as the infinite, mysterious and all-knowing OZ, err, Q is offering me the opportunity to blame my woes on someone else, I’m in.

Not terribly surprising, and in context of the social and political division caused by the Viet Nam War, Nixon wins election. Nixon is then re-elected by a landslide and then becomes our first president to resign from office in disgrace. That was the good news. The bad news was the Southern Strategy was here to stay.

Naturally, the dementia riddled, happy to deal from the bottom of the deck swindler, racist and religious zealot who would bring us all, well, not all, but some, into Heaven’s Kingdom is only too happy to continue pandering to the “silent, if not suddenly moral, majority”. Predictably, now with a sense of “morality” behind them, they get louder and louder to the point that in 1996 the Fox News channel appears in America under the guise of “fair and balanced” reporting that in fact, never existed.

From there, Faux Noose wastes no time converting into the right-wing propaganda machine they were designed to be and voila! The rightwing lunatic fringe factory goes from conspiracy theory truth optional late night rants on AM radio and into what now passes for primetime, but not quite mainstream, political discourse.

Next, comes the limbo game as in how low can the GOP go and nobody really knew, until now. Once the Reagan/Bush Sr. era of incompetent and conservatism pass and now in the opposition, the still feeling its oats this newfound coalition of basically brainwashed and insane Fox people are merely disgusting. Then the “Dubya” or more accurately, the Cheney presidency, after an all too convenient and unconstitutional sticking their judicial nose where it doesn’t belong shove by the US Supreme Court, takes control, 9-11 occurs, and we find ourselves lied straight into a war we could never win for reasons that did not exist.

Don’t forget, it was always about oil and nothing more. We the American public never actually got any oil, but kickbacks to Cheney in the form of stock appreciation through government “loans” made himself and his crony pals all the richer still, and yes, all paid by us. Yet somehow even these revelations of lying directly to the public, blatant corruption and an administration that considers all its decisions putting politics and partisanship ahead of the people and making everything in the first four-year term geared to getting re-elected (unlike one term president and my daddy George H.W. Bush) for another four-year term.

And for what? If there was an actual change in policy, continuation of, or well, anything other than the collapse of our economy culminating in an international Ponzi bond scheme based on rating the desirability of buying different levels of debt in the Mortgage market, GM going under, the loss of millions more American jobs with the manufacturing industry if anything, speeding up their plans to divest from America, wee, I can’t say I actually remember anything positive from those four years of pain and misery we would all probably like to forget. Can you?

But some people didn’t forget and in fact probably took note of how easy it was to manipulate a rather sizable percentage of the American voting population. Then came Obama. Then came the blatant racism of Mitch McConnell and his cadre of old white racists pandering to what would appear to be a base of support that literally exists to punish us, the ones who dared put a black man in the highest office of the land, and I might add, as he was doing a pretty good job handling an economic meltdown inherited courtesy of the doe in headlights, overwhelmed and in a semi-conscious stupor of inactivity in the face of diversity, Bush administration.

But the evil empire far from defeated, decided it would strike back. Soon, the once responsible, patriotic and proud political party, the GOP found itself just not nearly racist or religious or perhaps even economically irresponsible enough for the likes of the Tea Party turned Nazi Party and intent on showing that even the worst, most unworthy of old white men were preferable to any merit based analysis of fitness for office beyond “they are not like me” usually morphing into therefore they cannot be true Americans and yes, devolving even further into systematic white preference and outright white supremacy as the one and only qualification for office that matters.

And then came Trump and this is why we are running out of time to act, decisively, and defeat the extension of his reign of unmarked mercenary led territory of pending fascism, and the collapse of the American experiment, and with it, the dream.

This is where I ask all of you to stop for a moment and take a breath. We are in the end game of a coup d’état 50 years in the making. This is the part I must ask. Have you perhaps unknowingly, bought into this power grab with the potential to destroy a nation? A nation you claim to love?

If you are a Trump supporter, and let’s keep it real, and Trump is neither a Republican nor a Democrat but some offshoot or combination of 1930s – 1940s style autocratic, manipulative, (remember how easy it was for him to co-opt his base?) unscrupulous, untrustworthy and underhanded, throwback to the days of Mussolini, why are you still supporting him?

Is it not time to confess that as an enabler of Trump, the bottom line is it is not possible to separate the actions and deeds of this now in the open self-avowed racist who is now promoting at least division and civil unrest between Americans and possibly ending in the armed insurrection of white folk who having bought some army surplus camouflaged kakis, crawled through the mud on their bellies, keeping their rifles clean of course, over and under barbed wire and managed not to cut their heads off, and now consider themselves to be “a well-regulated militia” for purposes of the 2nd Amendment?

I ask with all sincerity do you realize you may have propagated this illusiory tale of patriots gone wild? No? Then before we move on let me ask you another question.

Have you put more time and effort into protecting and defending your “rights” under the Second Amendment or do you value your right to free speech, as did the Founding Fathers the first and foremost, most valuable gift under our Constitution?

Do you believe the Second Amendment allows for the “absolute” right to own as many firearms in whatever form, as you want? Even Scalia wouldn’t go that far stating there has never been a nation that has in some ways regulated the ownership of weapons among the general citizenry.

Do you support universal background checks as an extreme infringement on your 2nd A rights? Even if it allows for persons mentally unfit to “slip through the cracks” shoot up a school or two without the chance of any reasonable gun legislation as a preventative measure for this type of tragedy happening time and time again?

Do you think peaceful protestors exercising their right to speak on our streets should be shut down because of the inevitable non-political vandals and looters who use such situations to ply their trade, illegal as their actions may be? Do you believe the protestors should pay a fine? Do you think they should be imprisoned? Do you believe mothers should be tear gassed, beaten by government authorities, or whisked away by force without being charged and to an unknown location not usually on Federal property?

These are all actions and proposals practiced and put on the table by Bill Barr’s lap dog DOJ. A vote for Trump is a vote for the continuation of these unconstitutional, illegal and SS storm trooper tactics not just approved of, but now clearly favored by the Trump administration.

Do you still ignore legitimate commentary and opposing points of view, or do you routinely as a matter of course often without thinking, call them red herrings? Do you point to your favorite meme as proof of the validity of any given claim? Do you think Snopes in biased in favor of the left, or are you willing to consider the right wing gets called out more for their falsehoods, lying and cheating because they keep dumping into the media more falsehoods, lies and outright propaganda?

Do you prefer propaganda? Do you know what it is? Do you know how it can lead to the ruination of a nation? Can the mindless repetition of a lie ever make it true? Do you know what the bigger the lie theory is? Do you hesitate to question the reliability of a source, no matter how “wonky” it initially looks when it just so happens to agree with you?

Do you know Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer? Did you know Glenn Beck is an idiot? Did you know Alex Jones is even worse than the two of them combined? Did you know it has been ascertained by reliable sources that approximately 50% of all stories on Fox are based on lies? Do you care whether the Russians get involved with our election process so long as their efforts continue to support Trump?

Have you ever heard or seen me call for censorship of any kind except in cases of incitements to riot where a true threat of an imminent, illegal, and often violent action would almost assuredly, including injury and possibly death to the innocent, be the result? No, you haven’t because I respect your rights to speak and receive information that does not necessarily comport with my world view.

But I am asking you, if you are still planning on voting for Trump (assuming there is anyone one here) if you are not enabling the racist, sexist, homophobic, intolerant, and yes, dangerous garbage that spews out of his mouth on a daily if not hourly basis, that can never unite us as a nation.

Any of you know why? True dialogue and reconciliation must be based on facts. The American Marketplace of Ideas is based on the concept if we are all allowed to speak out minds, the truth will eventually emerge. Without a shared and overriding sense of commitment to the truth, there can be no forward motion to talk, listen, negotiate, and learn ourselves, through our words, through the current unhealthy polarized state of our nation.

This leads us to the question that should be on all our minds, and I say this not out of a sense of righteous indignation of superiority, but out of necessity, for if Trump has his way, tomorrow and for the next four years, or possibly for his life, Don Jr., Ivanka, and I imagine by then Barron next in the line of blood by ascension to wear the crown, we will be faced by a choice I personally cannot stand the thought of entertaining, but must and must be said.

Are you willing to back a president who would rather shoot it out under the Second Amendment? Or do you prefer one who will agree and help us talk it out under the First Amendment. Trump the racist, who can’t even say Black Lives Matter, backs the actions of a minor with an illegal long rifle killing two protestors, and let’s not forget, has shown his repeated indifference to life starting with separating children from their parents and putting the minors in cages as not only an acceptable method of border protect, but in fact the desired method, and that is why he continues this policy, and who knows whatever other horrors as yet to be revealed to us, the American public, and will continue to be hidden, if you vote for him and he is reelected.

Because you agree with him. Because your paycheck is slightly higher or you think he is “tough” on China, you don’t understand why we shouldn’t have better relations with Russia, or as I have heard repeatedly and consider it the ultimate lack of responsibility and cop-out “He puts religion first.” He doesn’t and anyone who would take the time to do as little as 30 minutes of unbiased research from as many sources as possible would know this is not true. Not to stoop to a movie quote, but, ask yourself, seriously, can you handle the truth?

Because if you can’t, there is one thing I can assure you, the difference between talking it out and shooting it out will be what defines us as a nation with the ability to work together, and heal together for the common good of all, or where we become an authoritarian dystopia based on might making right and where love comes out of the barrel of a gun.

It’s never too late to do the right thing except in this instance, you must act now. End this 50 years in the making conspiracy to take America back to a past better left behind. The hate dogs are all out for they know this opportunity will not happen for at least another 18-25 years of democratic rule sure to follow Trump’s defeat.

But you can agree to help us, your fellow Americans of all colors, backgrounds and beliefs, shapes, and sizes, who want nothing more than justice and equality for all under the laws of a nation founded on law, and where no one, not even the President of the United States is above the law.

In conclusion and without judgment, by continuing to support and importantly, vote to reelect the president, are you a racist? Are you willing to stand by “He says what I think” but are yourself unwilling to do? Preferring to let Trump and his stooges do the dirty work for you? If so, one last question? Just what kind of a coward are you? And that is one question, you will have to answer for yourself.

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