Many in America may be stunned by the
sudden rise of a presidential candidate who seems to be purposely
pandering to the followers of known white supremacists, such as David
Duke. Most political pundits would have considered that political
suicide for any contemporary presidential candidate prior to Donald
Trump's candidacy. However, Trump's rise is no fluke and had been in
the works for about seven years.
Ever since the election of the first
Black American President, the right planted the seeds which allowed
white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis to gain a significantly
stronger voice and influence in American politics. It was the
response of right-wing GOP politicians to Obama being elected
President which opened the door for white supremacist groups to
infiltrate the Republican party, ultimately allowing Trump to appeal
to their racist and nativist ideologies in order to win the 2016 GOP
nomination.
The Tea Party and Obama
The far right-wing
of the GOP, known as the Tea Party, was born in opposition to Obama,
the first Black American President. The birth of the Tea Party
movement can be traced to one specific moment. One morning in
mid-February 2009, Rick Santelli, a former commodities trader and
Vice President at Drexel Burnham Lambert was angry over the Homeowner
Affordability and Stability Plan. This Obama Administration proposal
would reduce the monthly mortgage payments of 9 million U.S.
homeowners who were facing foreclosure at the time. (1)
This prompted
Santelli, who had been encouraged by CNBC anchors, to deliver a
speech on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. In the speech he
accused the government of “promoting bad behavior.” A CNBC anchor
likened Santelli to “a revolutionary leader” who was rising up
against the oppressive Obama government. Santelli responded by
suggesting holding a “Chicago Tea Party” by “dumping in [to
Lake Michigan] some derivative securities.” Through this
anti-government rant against the Obama Administration, the Tea Party
movement was born. (1)
The Tea Party and the Ku Klux Klan
Along with
Santelli's anti-government sentiment and anger towards Obama, the
resulting Tea Party Movement began incorporating other values into
its platform. These values also happened to align with another
previous far right-wing movement: the Ku Klux Klan.
The KKK and other
white supremacist groups had always espoused inflammatory
anti-government sentiments along with their racist ideologies. This
could be seen when a Mississippi attorney with ties to the KKK, Carl
Ford, made headlines in 2014 after donating to the campaign of Tea
Party Republican Chris McDaniel. Ford considered himself
“pro-confederacy and anti-Lincoln” while McDaniel had been known
to appear at neo-Confederacy conferences. Ford expressed
anti-establishment and anti-government sentiment when explaining his
support of Tea Party candidates. (4)
Reformed neo-Nazi
leader Frank Meeink described in an interview with David Pakman in
2014 about the significant role anti-government sentiment played
within the white supremacist movements. In this same interview
Meeink described how white supremacist groups were openly encouraging
their followers to join the Tea Party movement for the purpose of
influencing the ideological slant of the burgeoning right-wing
phenomenon. Clearly, the ideas of anti-establishment and
anti-government sentiment had begun to blend into each other within
the far right-wing movement. (6)
Christianity's Role in the Tea Party
and KKK
On the other hand,
anti-government and anti-establishment sentiments are not the only
ideological parallels between the Tea Party and the KKK. The
contemporary Tea Party platform also promotes the idea of America
being a “Christian nation” which mirrors the KKK's assertion that
“our Nation have no future unless we unite and organize White
Christian Patriots.” Forty-seven percent of American Tea Party
members also identify themselves with the religious right, according
to a recent survey conducted by the Public Religion Research
Institute. Also,75 percent of Americans identifying with the Tea
Party movement also call themselves Christian conservatives.
(2)(3)(7)
These factors
provided the KKK and other white supremacist groups the ideologically
fertile ground to plant their seeds and begin their take over of the
GOP via the Tea Party. The fruit of these seeds would eventually lead
to the rise of Trump. It was not that the white supremacist groups
had specifically chosen Trump. They were simply waiting for a
candidate who would not be afraid to espouse their racist ideologies
via fear-mongering around immigration and their ideas of a “Christian
nation” via Islamophobia. Although the Trump campaign may now be
looking to soften its rhetoric in preparation of the general
election, now that it has clinched the GOP nomination, one should not
fall for the media's attempt to sanitize the Trump campaign. At its
ideological core and beginnings, the Trump campaign is simply a
political puppet of the KKK, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Sources
No comments:
Post a Comment