In 2018, all Americans would like to believe that racism is over and that society is moving toward equality and certain inalienable rights for everyone.
As such, the Democratic and Republican parties would respect every American based on the content of their character, as opposed to the color of their skin. But, with the 2016 elections, President Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party and it is going in the wrong direction.
Instead of the Republican Party working to be more diverse and reflecting the rainbows of the different cultures and races in the society, the party has become primarily White. This has created a division in the country, which appears to be growing.
“When Thomas Jefferson wrote that ‘all men are created equal,’ he did not mean that all men were equal in all respects. In other places he wrote with conviction about the existence of a natural aristocracy among men, based upon virtue and talent,” says John Van Til, writer at Foundation for Economic Education.
America has always been a racist society. Once White men in America realized they could abuse and enslave people of color around the world, and no one would challenge their authority, the great society was born.
Based on wealth, power, and violence, our great founders massacred an entire nation as if they did not exist, and justified their actions through religious, economic and political liberty. It was very easy for our founders to extol the virtues of equality on one hand while owning slaves and whipping human beings into submission on the other.
But with the legislation providing for civil rights, voter rights, political and economic rights, people of color believed that equality and Democratic principles were just around the corner. There have been tremendous strides in equality, in every aspect of the society, and with the election of the first Black president, there was change in the air.
But in 2016, a new ideology of racism and xenophobia took over American politics and Donald Trump became president. Trump connected with White voters who are anti-immigration and racially conservative, and the Republican Party has made the president a mouthpiece for White nationalism. There are times that Trump represents almost 45 percent of Americans who are White, and many of these residents are motivated by racial resentment.
“Trump’s victory was regarded as the elevation to the highest office of a political misfit when it was actually a return to normalcy, as attested by the increase in racially-motivated incivility and crime,” explains Professor Serge Ricard, writer of the Trump Phenomenon. This race factor, he said, is central to the Trumpian discource and the heyday of White nationalism under a President prone to stoking the flames of division and prejudice.
The reality of racism is deeply entrenched in the alt-right, and the redneck mindset of White America. White racial prejudice and bigotry have raised their ugly heads again, and the Republican Party is following their hero, leader, and mouthpiece.
When the president says something ridiculous and racist, the White Republican Party acts as if the statement never existed — like slavery or the destruction of the Native Americans.
How long will it take prejudice, bigotry and White nationalism to be erased from the Republican Party, with leaders like Trump, and replaced with progressive ideas and healing?
America must be elevated to include the diversity of the entire country, with all its colors and cultures. The challenge for the Democratic Party in 2018 is to speak the truth and address lies for what they are when they are spoken.
Roger Caldwell is the president and CEO of On Point Media Group. Follow him at rogerpoliticalblogs.wordpress.com.
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