Mr. Trump and those Republicans who continue to enable him are making headway in their efforts to divide and conquer American citizens by splitting them into factions and pitting them against each other. Although they might not be overtly doing this, those things that they subliminally suggest and/or imply work well to provoke Americans and encourage this hateful infighting in our country. More hate crimes are occurring since Mr. Trump was elected. He rode to victory like a white knight astride his trusty steed ‘Make America Great Again’, the namesake of his great cap-selling slogan, during the presidential primaries and general elections.
Speaking about white knight, the so-called Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) are working hard to revive the days of old that, based on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric and the people that he has surrounded himself with, easily dovetails with what appears to be the ideals of the Trump slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ and the days that he wants to take America back to. Although he has referred to himself as ‘the least racist person that you have ever met’, his constant antics speak otherwise. Instead of bringing us together, his actions and rhetoric seem to inflame Americans of all stripes.
The KKK recently applied for a permit to hold a rally near the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia on June 8, 2017. This is two days before which a rally by a right wing group led by a local blogger, who was recently fired by a conservative website for his support of white supremacist groups, will also be held. And it is less than a month after self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Spencer led a night rally, attended by torch-wielding supporters, protesting the removal of this statue. Mr. Spencer coined the term “alt-right” and he is also calling for a whites-only state.
Because of Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric, messaging tied to his ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan, his endless antics and faux pas, and the fact that elected Republicans want to protect him at all costs, want-to-be elected Republicans (e.g. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart and Montana congressional seat candidate Greg Gianforte) want to be like him and hate groups seem to be inspired by him, it is not hard to see why people associate these problems with Mr. Trump and are inflamed by him. Again, this drives a wedge between Americans rather than pull them together.
Well, if ‘Make America Great Again’ means what it appears to mean, which is returning to the days in America when women could not vote and could not make decisions about their own bodies and health, when America discriminated against fellow Americans because of their religion or ethnicity and had her foot on the necks of African Americans simply because of the color of their skin; then I do not want anything to do with it! And I suspect that the great majority of Americans, obviously some would like to return to those days, feel the same way! It is completely unacceptable!
All the while that the “least racist person that you have ever met” and man who “could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and my numbers wouldn’t change” is applying his divide and conquer strategy on Americans; he is also doing everything in his power to prevent us from getting to the bottom of exactly how Russia was involved in the 2016 American presidential election and from getting answers to questions as to whether or not members of his campaign and cabinet and/or he colluded with them.
Further shenanigans surrounding this particular effort surfaced on June 7, 2017 when National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stonewalled Congress when they were questioned about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. They refused to say whether or not Mr. Trump asked them to interfere in this investigation even though they did not have any legal basis for their refusal.
To make matters worse, when the Committee questioned former FBI Director James Comey the following day, Senator John McCain, who was the last to speak before the session was adjourned, went through a painful and convoluted effort to suggest that if Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election is still open because, in the words of Mr. Comey, it is “a big deal” that a foreign government interfered in it, then the Hillary Clinton email investigation should also still be open because she was also a presidential candidate. Huh?! Go figure.
Throughout all of this, the Implicit question that Mr. Trump continues to pose to Americans is ‘are you going to believe me or your lying eyes, ears and dire situation that you are in? Based on the way that things have gone for him so far since he made his announcement to run for president, it would be far from a sure bet to wager that people will believe their lying eyes, ears and dire situation that they are in. So which of the two are you going to believe? During his testimony former FBI Director Comey essentially called the president a liar. Mr. Trump’s Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, protested loudly after the hearings and said that ‘the president is not a liar’. So once again I ask, who are you going to believe?
While Mr. Trump and his enablers are busy tearing America apart, disgracing her in the eyes of her allies and the world, and marching her in reverse as quickly as possible, Americans must not despair. As Senator Elizabeth Warren has said repeatedly, this fight is our fight! And she is right. We must stay the course and, no matter how many times we are knocked down, we must get right back up and continue to fight. Although our allies are confused and some are beginning to question America’s willingness to lead and our commitment to them, an encouraging word has come from Emmanuel Macron, the newly elected president of France. An article in Quartz by Roya Wolverson dated June 1, 2017 stated the following:
In a nod to Trumps bravado about US power, Macron reassured Americans that “the world believes in you. I know that you are a great nation.”
In light of the fact that France is one of America’s closest allies and is respected by our other allies in Europe , this is an important statement that can help to convince other American allies to stay the course through all of Mr. Trump’s antics and negative rhetoric and that they can rest assured that America can still be trusted to abide by our commitments.
As we continue to fight we must remember that Mr. Trump is not doing this alone. It would be impossible for him to do it without the help of those who are enabling him. And come the 2018 and 2020 elections we must demonstrate to Mr. Trump and those enablers that we will not tolerate elected officials who chose to discard statesmanship to support any president at all costs and who refuse to step up and stand up for America by defending and protecting the Constitution, which they swore to defend and protect. And if they persist in refusing to perform their sworn duty, let’s show them by way of our vote that we are serious about assuring that they stand on principle, conduct themselves as statesmen and always place country above party. Let’s vote them out!
Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line