Trump the chump

By Deauwand Myers

Some of my friends, Westerners and Koreans alike, are shocked about Donald Trump's political rise, asking me what I think about it.

Few people, myself included, believed billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star Donald Trump would become the presumptive nominee of one of America's two major political parties.

Yet, this is ahistorical.

U.S. Senator and ultra-right-winger Barry Goldwater attracted appreciation from white supremacists during his failed bid for the presidency way back in 1964. Lyndon B. Johnson won that year in the biggest landslide since the late 1800s.

The Republicans, and more generally, the American conservative movement (and in every advanced democracy, for that matter) have attracted racists, sexists, misogynists, homophobes, xenophobes, and supply-side voodoo economists for, well, generations. African-Americans heavily supported Republicans, the party of Lincoln, from Abolition until the 1960s.

Then segregationist Democrats (Dixiecrats) vaulted to the Republican Party. Much of the American.

South did the same as a protest against LBJ's Civil Rights agenda. Republicans played off this white, racial angst to great political effect.

First Nixon, then Reagan, talking in fairly obvious racial code about "states' rights" in Mississippi and welfare "bucks" driving Cadillacs and having children out of wedlock, extended this political strategy.

Most elected Republicans aren't racists or fundamentalist Christians. Some of their most vocal constituents are, however. And so on some issues, they half-deliver (e.g. severely curtailing abortion rights where possible, or by the breathtaking expansion of gun rights, where in some states, guns can be carried into churches, on college campuses, and even in bars; where people drink alcohol, by the way).

But federally, Republicans haven't done much for the working class white folks and Christian zealots who helped put them there. Abortion has not been overturned. "Crony capitalism," where certain corporations get generous tax breaks (a policy started by Clinton) has only expanded. Tax cuts are skewed toward the wealthy. Republicans are only fiscally conservative when a Democratic president is in office.

In short, many policies Republicans pursue are only for the moneyed few, while the electorate, of all political persuasions, are actually for an increase in taxes on the wealthy, an expansion of medical coverage and social security, and higher wages for the working poor.

Enter Donald Trump. Either by mistake or genius, he's been able to massage the racist, xenophobic underbelly of conservatives or conservative-leaning people whilst espousing an anti-corporate populism, complete with a broader social safety net. Added to this is economic nationalism, interspersed with rank generalizations of Muslims and Latinos, the mocking of the physically disabled, women, and a winking at white supremacists.

It would be funny if he weren't close to becoming a presidential nominee.

Years ago, Trump questioned President Obama's American citizenship and his Harvard education, for no other reason than he has an African name. White folks often question the qualifications of colored people and how they became successful, as if colored people cannot read, write, and walk upright.

The affirmative action of being white, the privilege of legacy enrollment in elite schools, the advantages of being in the majority in every lever and level of power in American society never bother these same white folks.

American society, like most countries colonized by Europeans, is rife with the stench of Anglo-imperialism, the negative effects of which will be felt for many generations in the future. Literally, every empirical study done on race and gender by America's finest universities and institutions finds that being black, brown, red, Asian, and/or female represents real disadvantages (to varying degrees) from birth to death in nearly all areas of American society.

Mitt Romney, himself defeated by Obama, is shocked at the rise of Trump, a man he begged for an endorsement from in 2012. This is the same Romney who considered himself a self-made man, even though he was always wealthy, white, and male. He also joked about Obama's citizenship. Now, Romney acts as if he's morally superior to Trump. Please.

Conservatives and Republicans should ask themselves why it is that all racial, ethnic, and religious minorities routinely vote for Democrats in federal elections. Besides policy, could it be that you repel who you don't like, and attract who you do?

The solution to this is simple. The GOP, if it ever wants to hold the presidency again, needs to stop the rhetoric of fear and hate and disavow the darker parts of its constituency. It's certainly too late for this election, but if it wants to avoid the demographic death spiral of only attracting a diminishing population of mostly old, white men, while young people, single women, and racial minorities accrue to the left and the Democrats, it should surely try.

Let's be brutally honest: most Republicans are not racists, but most racists are Republicans. Trump is the perfect distillation of all that. Deal with it.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.