Donald Trump, who’s only been back in the White House for a little over two weeks, has catapulted the nation into a major crisis. The twice-impeached, convicted felon’s pre-election vow to be a dictator on Day One has proven true. He’s violated the Constitution multiple times by recklessly attempting to freeze all government grants and loans, eliminating entire government agencies created by Congress, firing 18 Inspectors General, mass firing civil servants without due process and turning over access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system and sensitive personal data of every American to unelected billionaire oligarch and “co-president” Elon Musk.
Trump’s white supremacist beliefs, blatant during the campaign as he quoted Adolph Hitler and demonized immigrants of color, is undeniable in his first week in office issuing executive orders to eliminate all federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, as well as revoking President Johnson’s 1965 executive order that prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Trump’s racism was again on full display when he outrageously blamed DEI for the tragic jet plane-helicopter collision at Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Steve Phillips, host of the Democracy in Color podcast and best selling author of “How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.” Here he discusses Donald Trump’s unabashed bigotry, the long history of white racial resentment and American voter’s support for white supremacist political leaders.
STEVE PHILLIPS: To understand Donald Trump’s place in the political universe and most importantly, the political power that he’s been able to amass and the support that he’s been able to develop, which I mentioned up top — still not majority support in the country, but far greater than anybody would want to previously acknowledge.
His support is driven by and really undergirded by white racial fear and resentment. This is a long-standing, as long as we’ve had this country, this is the essence of the Civil War, right? This is the irony of this moment that it was the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who actually ran for president, talked about this nation being dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal, oppose white nationalism in the form of white people owning African-Americans in slavery.
And now we have the current Republican president really trying to reverse and oppose all of that tradition. And so he rose to power as a champion and defender of white people and the white culture of this country. He was at 5 percent in the polls in May of 2015 when he first entered the race when he first came down those stairs.
At those events, he attacked Mexicans. He calls Mexicans rapists and murderers, positioned himself as the defender of this country’s culture. He didn’t attack Canadians who also have a border with us. It was the dark-skinned, Spanish-speaking Mexicans to inflame white fears and resentments — and immediately shot to the top of the pack of the polls. And has never looked back.
And so that is what has driven his support when he was president. Unapologetic defender waxing nostalgic about Robert E. Lee. Talking about fine people on both sides at a white supremacist rally where, you know, one young progressive white woman was killed.
His whole being in presidency and political leadership, he got clear around the potential power of these attacks by going after Barack Obama’s birth certificate, claiming that that black man was not legitimately a U.S. citizen. He saw how much that riled people up.
So we should have seen this coming. And so all he’s doing now is delivering on what he’s been promising for over a decade in terms of trying to make this country whiter again.
I titled the Trump chapter of my book, “How We Win the Civil War, Make America White Again.” And he is aggressively trying to do that.
SCOTT HARRIS: Steve, as we confront Trump regime 2.0, blatantly racist. Every action seems to underscore the fact that Trump is a bigoted fool. I wanted to ask you, what are some of the things you recommend average people, listeners who are appalled about this obscene, blatant racism we see from the president, the highest office in the country? What’s an effective thing we can do?
STEVE PHILLIPS: Well, I’ll say 2 or 3 things. We have always had in this country two different nations, most clearly in terms of context of the Civil War. So it’s the 19 states that voted for Harris, but also the 2,000 counties that voted for Harris. For instance, Houston. Harris County in Texas went for Harris. Harris County is large in 15 different states.
So there’s a level of finding and backing the leaders and organizations in those places. There’s a very specific thing that people can do. So Texas Organizing Project does work in Harris County, Texas. People should subscribe to the newsletter, send them money, support groups like that. And there’s a group in Arizona. LUCHA does work in Maricopa County, which is a county that Trump won but we really should have. Get behind groups like LUCHA. Get on their mailing list, send them money. So those are some very specific things.
And then encourage the leaders in those places to stand up unapologetically for an alternative vision and set of values within this country as he’s rolling back DEI. What’s notable about all his attacks on DEI and all of the stuff, is these are attacks on remedies.
Even as far and as radical as he is being, he’s not saying there’s not a problem with inequality. He’s just saying these remedies are bad. We shouldn’t look at these remedies.
So we should reground people. Do we care about equality? Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, he talked about we are dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal.
Are we still so dedicated? And I would start the dinner conversations — the neighbors, the friends conversations with that, there’s profound inequality. Do we still care? And are we going to do anything about it. And then we can talk about what’s the particular remedy. And so it remains the case that most people of color do see a lot of the racism that’s out there and want this to be a multi-racial democracy.
A lot of the conversation is a lot of whites want this to be a multiracial democracy. And that’s still the majority of people. But to the extent that the fight is not engaged and called out and people summoned to their highest and best selves, then we will continue to erode the votes, the margins that we have had.
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