‘Trump has portrayed himself as the defender of whiteness and its privileges...’
ASKED by his favourite TV news channel what his agenda is ahead of November’s general election, Donald Trump was at a complete loss.
Despite the comfort of his favourite interviewer Sean Hannity, the President, much to Republican dismay, didn’t have an answer.
Bereft of how best to bring a deeply disunited States together, he replied: “One of the things that will be really great – the word experience is still good, I always say talent is more important than experience, I’ve always said that – but the word experience is a very important word, a very important meaning.”
It made no sense at all. But one thing Trump has been clear on is the promise that his campaign will make bigotry safe again.
As America’s racial turmoil continues to spiral out of control following the killing of George Floyd, the President’s re-election message has been that white America is under siege.
This was most evident last weekend when Trump told not just America, but the rest of the world, who he believes are “great people”.
The President retweeted a post showing a two-minute video of his loyal fans as they campaigned in their golf buggies through a Florida retirement community.
As the pensioners drove by anti-Trump protesters, some of whom were holding up Black Lives Matter signs, one protester yelled that the President is a “racist”.
In response, barely 10 seconds into the footage, one elderly man can be seen screaming back: “White Power. White Power.”
For hours, the US leader’s 83 million Twitter followers were able to see the elderly face of American racism before the post was eventually taken down.
The White House, which is perpetually in firefighting mode, was quickly forced to turn the hoses on another blaze started by arsonist-in-chief Trump.
Press secretary flunky Kayleigh McEnany insisted the President didn’t hear the phrase “white power” before posting the video.
The White House claimed it was only when learning of its white supremacist content from advisers and supporters it was removed.
They claimed it took them an age to get it taken down as the man who has his finger on the nuclear button had gone to play golf without his phone. Let’s be clear, the yell of “white power” was not buried far into the video. Instead, the man shouting the phrase appears in the first few seconds.
It’s simply not possible for anyone who watched the start of it to avoid the “white power” scream, which is commonly shouted at far-right events as a racist rallying cry.
Yet it was about this video that Trump felt compelled to write “Thank you to the great people of The Villages”, before then slamming “the Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats”.
Not content with just one controversy, however, Trump provided a hallelujah chorus when on Monday he shared more shocking footage.
He posted a video of a white couple standing outside their St Louis mansion aiming the rifle of choice for mass murderers at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.
Trump’s sharing of such footage is not a mistake. The President, who finds himself trailing likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a range of polls, is simply following his successful 2016 campaign playbook, the pages of which provide an idiot’s guide to bigotry.
The only rational conclusion is that in his desperate campaign to win re-election, Trump has chosen to portray himself even more explicitly as the defender of whiteness and all its privileges.
Look at America today – ravaged by Covid-19, wrecked by an economic crisis, roiled by racism, yet Trump makes no effort to solve any of these problems. His focus instead is on a sickening effort to make white people angry and afraid enough to give him a second term.