TRUMPISM – THE BACKLASH TO THE BROWNING OF AMERICA

Donald Trump is no longer President of the United States of America, but Tumpism is not dead. It still dominates the Republican Party and Trump’s loyal base would still defend and support him if he “shot someone on Fifth Avenue.” Understanding Trumpism, where it came from and what it is all about, is essential if we hope to deal with it and dealing with it is essential if we hope to unite our country.

Trumpism is the backlash to The Browning of America. It is the response by tens of millions of white Americans to the realization that people of color are rapidly gaining power in this country and the fear that if they become the majority they could and would use their power to treat white Americans the way white Americans have treated them for centuries.

Not convinced? Answer these three questions for yourself:.

1) What would cause millions of decent, church going Christians to abandon the teachings of their faith and support a man who is the personification of all Seven Deadly Sins – Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride – plus being a liar, a cheat and a thief?

2) What would cause millions of hard working rural and blue collar Americans to ignore their values and support the kind of man they have never really liked, respected or had any use for – a rich, rude, loud mouth, womanizing, draft dodging, elitist from New York City who never got his hands dirty doing an honest day’s work in his life and thinks he is smarter and better than everyone else?

3) What would cause thousands of Americans from all walks of life, who have lived normal lives under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, to feel so desperately afraid that they will lose their freedom and their country if Donald Trump isn’t their President that they would attack the Capitol of the United States and threaten to kill the Vice President and members of Congress in order to reverse the results of an election Donald Trump clearly lost.....something that no Americans have ever done, not even during the Civil War?.

My answer to all three of these questions is FEAR, - fear of The Browning of America coupled with the belief that Donald Trump would stop it from happening. Nothing else explains the kind of behavior we have been seeing from so many people who have never behaved this way before.

It is important to understand that not everyone who voted for Donald Trump in this past election is part of the backlash. The reactionary, right wing extremists who believe the USA is a white Christian nation were here long before Donald Trump. They supported him because his words and deeds enabled and legitimized their cause. Many of the wealthiest Americans supported him because they profited during his administration, directly or through the Stock Market. Other Americans believed they could advance their careers by riding the Trump Train. Then there are the millions of Americans of all races, religions and sexual orientations who are zealous partisans, including both those who have become disillusioned with the Democratic Party and will never vote for a Democrat again and those who have never voted for a Democrat in their life and never will, no matter what.

It is the tens of millions of people who make up Donald Trump’s loyal base that are the core of this backlash. They are the people who believe that the “end justifies the means”, fear The Browning of America, and trust Donald Trump to stop people of color from gaining any more power in this country. Now that Donald Trump doesn’t have the power to stop The Browning of America they are even more frightened.

So, how did we get to this place of extreme partisanship, rancor, and divisiveness?

Following the 1970 Census, it was noted that the demographics in the United Stated were shifting and it was predicted that a time would come, probably in the early 21^st century, when white Americans would no longer be the majority in this country. This demographic shift was labeled The Browning of America.  Americans who saw the USA as a huge melting pot and considered our diversity to be our greatest strength as a nation didn’t really have a problem with that prediction. Americans who saw the USA as a white, Christian nation, probably because it was founded by white Christians and had  been governed by white Christians ever since, tended to think the prediction was ridiculous and would never happen. As you might imagine, the idea of The Browning of America prompted a great deal of heated discussion and wild speculation about how the country would react to such a demographic shift and the resulting shift in power if and when it were to happen.

Note: I can’t remember or find a reference to who originally made this prediction or coined the phrase The Browning of America, but I was there in the early 70s, in Washington D.C, working as Communications Director for the National Drug Abuse Training Center created by President Nixon’s Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention and I was directly involved in the heated discussion and wild speculation.

In 2016, after we had elected a black man President – twice - and he had served his two terms with distinction, tens of millions of Americans, suddenly realized that The Browning of America was not just some scholarly, demographic exercise, but was really happening and they were terrified by that realization.... terrified that people who are not like them – people of color, primarily, but also people with different religious beliefs, sexual orientations and cultural backgrounds – would soon have sufficient power, especially if they became the majority in this country, to do to white Americans what white Americans have been doing to them for hundreds of years.

Donald Trump tapped into this deep-seated fear during his 2016 presidential campaign when he said he was going to Make America Great Again. The people who feared The Browning of America understood him to mean he was going to take the country back to a time when white Americans held all the power in this country and everyone else knew and stayed in their place. Then, on his first day in office as President, Donald Trump doubled down on the MAGA  theme by falsely proclaiming, and then insisting contrary to actual fact,  that more people had attended his inauguration than had attended Barack Obama’s inauguration. This said to his supporters, “I am white, just like you, and we are better in every way than that black man, even if he did get elected President.“ Trump then proceeded to undo everything Barack Obama had done during his two terms in office, which convinced his supporters that he was, in fact, their savior from The Browning of America.

Donald Trump, con man that he is, then began to convince his supporters that liberals, and particularly white liberals (snowflakes), under the guise of seeking equality, were actually conspiring with people of color and other minorities to gain favor with them when they became the majority. That made liberals and their Democratic Party, especially in the eyes of Donald Trump’s supporters who consider the USA a white, Christian nation, not only the enemy, but traitors to their race and their country. This is where we are now. Warnings about encroaching socialism are just a diversion intended to distract people from focusing on what is actually going on.

How do we quell this backlash and unite the country?

To be fair, history provides some justification for the fear driving this backlash. We’ve all seen or read about the lie of revolution – people rising up against those in power to “change the system”, only to discover when they succeeded that they didn’t really want to change the system. They just wanted to control it; and they controlled it with the same repressive measures the people they overthrew had used. Fortunately, our revolution in 1776 is one of the few examples where that did not happen. We did change the system. We replaced a monarchy with a democratic republic and, despite the struggles and challenges we have faced, we have been steadily working toward “a more perfect union”, which has made us the envy and the leaders of the free world. People of color and other minorities don’t want retribution, even if they eventually become the majority. They just want equality - equal opportunity and equal justice under the law. Their demands for a fair shot at the American Dream are no different from similar demands for equality we have faced in the past (i.e. the abolishment of slavery, women’s suffrage, the labor movement, the New Deal, civil rights, voting rights, gay marriage, etc.)  We struggled with each of these demands, but eventually assimilated them into the mainstream and none of these advances toward “a more perfect union” deprived anyone else of their shot at the American Dream. They just made the basic principle on which our nation was founded, equality, a reality for more people and they made our country stronger.

Unfortunately, by stoking this fear and fueling this backlash, Donald Trump has not only further divided our country; he has taken over the Republican Party. The majority of people who voted for Donald Trump this year voted for him, not for the Republican Party. All the other Republican politicians who have supported and enabled him over the past four years, and continue to support Trumpism, obviously feel they need Trump’s loyal base to remain in office and they have willingly become Donald Trump’s whores to achieve that end. Nothing is going to change in this country until we address the fear that is driving this backlash to The Browning of America.  

Nobody is talking about this fear, even though it has been lurking in the shadows for a decade and is in the back of the minds of tens of millions of Americans. It is the “elephant in the room”.  It is not going to go away and we are not going to unite this country until we recognize it, talk about it and put it to rest by finding ways to assure all Americans that The Browning of America is not going to deprive them of their rights or their freedom under the law.

Hopefully, the shocking and unprecedented events of the past several months will remind us all that democracy is not a winner-take-all game. It is real life and it is about inclusion, dialog, negotiation and compromise.  Government in a democratic republic is not about the power of its leaders. It is about serving the needs of its citizens. Rock and Roll legend Mick Jagger probably didn’t fully realize the significance of what he was saying when he sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” That’s the best description I’ve ever heard of a functioning democracy and we can have that again here in the United States if we stop thinking about what each of us wants all the time and start thinking about what we all need. Only then can we work together to find ways to make sure we all get what we need.