Donald Trump was shut up on 11 March – forced to cancel a Chicago event after hundreds rallied inside the arena in which he was due to take the stage. The protesters, mostly Blacks and Latinos, vented rage against the Republican presidential frontrunner’s disgusting racist rhetoric.
Trump, with his denunciation of Washington politicians as puppets of special interests, his slamming of free trade deals that have destroyed US jobs and his “tell it like it is” tough-guy posturing has tapped a nerve among the Republican base. He even has support among independents and some Democrats who are sick to death of the corrupt political establishment that has presided over the decline of living standards and the crippling of the US economy.
But his populism is infused with virulent racism, which has been a feature of his campaign. Trump has proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States and promises one of the largest ethnic cleansings in world history: the deportation of at least 11 million undocumented workers. When he announced his candidacy last June, one of his opening sentences said of Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists … I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting”.
As his statements have become more incendiary, his campaign events have become rallying grounds for white supremacists and anti-government patriot groups – many of which have endorsed his candidacy. Rally attendees, overwhelmingly white and egged on by Trump, have physically attacked, spat on and verbally abused Blacks, Latinos and Muslims.
At an event in Atlanta last year, an African American man started chanting, “Black Lives Matter!” He was punched and kicked by Trump supporters yelling racial slurs. Trump later defended those people on Fox News, saying: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing”.
Yet while Trump is a vile piece of work, his opinions are not that different from the mainstream in the US establishment – he just takes the officially-sanctioned racist hysteria to its logical conclusion.
For example, his call to deport all undocumented Mexicans is grotesque, but only builds on the current practice of Black Democratic president Obama. The most recent figures from the US Office of Immigration Statistics show that from 2009 to 2013, the Obama administration deported more than 2 million people – more than George Bush deported in his eight years in office and almost as many as were deported in the 108 years from 1892 to 2000.
Nor is the demonisation of Muslims something that Trump dreamed up – years of media campaigning has created an already toxic environment. So much so that when Obama was running for president eight years ago, two of his volunteers denied behind-stage seating to two Muslim women who attended one of his rallies. The aides assumed it would be bad publicity for the senator to be associated with them.
Trump is just the most egregious expression of a poverty-stricken and rage-filled society that is in a state of decay. He seeks to channel the latent rage and turn working people against each other in a more profound way than is currently the case.
So while it is inspiring to see protestors taking on Trump, an alternative to his politics of hate will need to take on the already established racism and class inequality that is at the root of the crisis in US politics.
