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Donald Trump’s presidency, the forces that support it and the prospect of his re-election pose a clear and present danger to our democratic republic. Trump’s rhetoric, his politics and his policies are based on the belief that America has been, and should remain, a white man’s country, and that violence and intimidation are legitimate means of keeping it that way.

This racial nationalism was evident from the moment he descended his gilded escalator to announce that the United States is being invaded by Mexican rapists and drug mules, and that the way to “Make America Great Again” was to repel this invasion of dangerous people of color. This despite overwhelming evidence that immigrants are significantly less likely to engage in criminal conduct than native-born Americans. 

Trump has repeatedly addressed his rallies with the parable of the snake, in which immigrants are represented as poisonous snakes who are, by their very nature, a mortal danger to their hosts. Trump’s white nationalism was echoed in his contempt for people from Latin America and Africa, from what he called “shithole countries;” in his suggestion that congresswomen of color Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib should “go back where they came from;” and in his recent remarks congratulating descendants of Nordic immigrants in Minnesota on their superior genes. 

Trump has appointed top advisors like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who subscribe to the “Great Replacement” narrative. This mythology suggests that Europeans and European-Americans are under siege from immigrants of color whose high rates of reproduction will soon result in a demographic equivalent of “white genocide.” This was the idea motivating the white supremacist chant in Charlottesville, Virginia, that “You will not replace us.” 

Trump’s cynically cruel immigration policies have been explicitly designed to inflict such hardship and pain that potential immigrants from “shithole countries” are deterred from entering the U.S. And his fetishized but practically ineffective border wall has little value apart from its symbolic significance as a physical marker of separation between real Americans and immigrants from “shithole countries.” 

When asked to condemn white supremacist movements and acts of violence, such as those that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia; Portland, Oregon; and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Trump has either equivocated or signaled his support and encouragement. This was evident most recently during the first presidential debate, when Trump told the militia movement the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” which they have interpreted as a presidential order to prepare for battle in America’s streets.

Taken together, this is nothing short of a fascist style of politics. And there is so much more: I am barely able to scratch the surface in the space available here.

If Trump is re-elected, there is every reason to believe he will be unrestrained in his racist, authoritarian impulses, and his most militant, violent followers will be emboldened to act on their shared hatreds. The danger is real: the result could well be catastrophic for the American experiment in democracy.

 

Mark Rupert

Professor of Political Science

Syracuse University

Published on October 4, 2020 at 10:21 pm