Democrats Versus “White Nationalists” on Election Day?

In Krugman’s view implicit appeals to racial hostility have long been at the core of Republican strategy.

Paul Krugman says he can tell you why, shamefully and against all odds, Donald Trump is running about neck and neck with Hillary Clinton one month before election day. It is simple: Donald Trump is a “white nationalist”—one who believes that the national identity of America is racially white—and so, too, are enough Americans to make the election unforgivably (in Krugman’s view) close.

He writes: “Part of the answer is that a lot more Americans than we’d like to imagine are white nationalists at heart. Indeed, implicit appeals to racial hostility have long been at the core of Republican strategy; Mr. Trump became the G.O.P. nominee by saying outright what his opponents tried to convey with dog whistles.”

Krugman has long argued that Ronald Reagan dog-whistled his way to a white-supremacist victory by using such terms as “welfare queen” to characterize women who live on welfare and an array of other government payments.

Note on jargon: “Dog whistle” is a metaphor for political language that communicates a message to the intended audience—the “dogs”—while being inaudible, because subsonic, to human beings. (By golly, I think I hear a dog whistle right now, in Krugman’s subsonic message that many of those voting for Trump are not quite human.) Thus, Krugman has long argued that Ronald Reagan dog-whistled his way to a white-supremacist victory by using such terms as “welfare queen” to characterize women who live on welfare and an array of other government payments.

Krugman is the white knight, the idealized champion, moving America as rapidly as possible toward socialism. A Nobel laureate in economics, Ivy League professor, and columnist for the New York Times, Krugman proclaimed his socialism in his book, Conscience of A Liberal, a deliberate parallel with Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. Krugman explains that “liberal” in America equates with “social democrat” in Europe. I will argue that the more precise term is “fascist democrat”—one who aspires to elect a government that is the fascist variant of socialism.

If Krugman puts white nationalism first among motives for supporting Trump, he accuses what is called the “American heartland” of bigotry. Much of the South, Midwest, Northwest, parts of New England, and some Mid-Atlantic states now are for Trump. Almost half of America, on Krugman’s map, is heavily white nationalist, yearning for a racially pure United States that, in fact, never existed, that they never experienced, but that Paul Krugman divines in their hearts.

Krugman is plugging Clinton’s view because she cannot accuse half of the electorate of being racists; but if, as she says, Trump is obviously a racist, xenophobe, misogynist, and homophobe, then what is she saying about his supporters? Answer: Only a bigot could vote for Trump.

Mr. Krugman does say that “racially motivated voters” are still a minority—and therefore Clinton is still leading–but now, he says, she has run into “a buzz saw of adversarial reporting from the mainstream press…” That statement takes us into an alternate reality I do not recognize. Krugman offers a couple examples such as criticism of the Clinton Foundation and the 30,000 missing emails. But I would have said that never in my adult life, in any election, have I seen even remotely the remorseless attack in 2016 on one candidate—Donald Trump.

Krugman virtually assumes that in terms of the issues there are no remotely plausible grounds for favoring Trump. My personal testimony is the opposite: Despite some of Trump’s behavior, rough comments, and stage antics, I am drawn to his believable positions on some crucial issues. My reaction to debate number one?  Relief. That maybe I can live with the Trump of debate #1 for the sake of his policies.

We are talking about the first debate, so I will give an example of what I mean:

The first question to the candidates: What would you do to create jobs?

Clinton replied: “I want to invest in you…” and with no explanatory transition…”jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean energy…” [Are those federal government jobs? What “investment” will create them?] …”make the economy fairer, “raise the national minimum wage,” “equal pay for women’s work,” “profit sharing,” “paid family leave,” “debt free college,” “make the wealthy pay their share,” “close corporate tax loopholes.”  [Obama didn’t manage to do any of that in eight years?]

Trump replied: “[S]top companies from leaving the United States…” [Companies have the jobs.]  How to stop them? Slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. And, if they leave, don’t exempt them from import taxes when they send their goods back to the United States to sell.­­­

Hillary Clinton plays to the special demands of women versus men, Blacks versus Whites, illegal immigrants versus citizens, the “rich” versus the middle class, Black Americans versus the police, gays-lesbians-transsexuals versus the population at large—every imaginable variant on the theme that society is a ceaseless struggle of the “oppressed” for “social justice” at the hands of their “oppressors.”

Clinton opens a menu of voting hot buttons. Trump advances a proposal to turn around the flight abroad of U.S. corporati­­­­­­­­­­­­­ons. Giving businesses a huge break (remember, everyone who works for a business also pays personal income tax) is SO painfully politically incorrect that it might work. Businesses create real jobs; businesses will hire as many workers as can, on net, contribute to their profits; profits are hugely affected by taxes. The two chief aspects of competition with foreign countries for businesses are 1. wages, and 2. taxes. Can we slash wages? Government does not control wages, at least yet, except for setting a minimum wage, which causes unemployment because businesses lose money when required to pay workers more than they are worth to the company. The big losers are minority teenagers, who need entry level jobs at market wages to get onto the career ladder. But we can cut corporate taxes, which, in any case, are unfair, since all corporate employees pay income taxes and stockholders pay taxes on dividends and capital gains.

Trump’s proposal: simple, direct, powerful. Clinton’s: a memorized a list of promises to everyone. (Given this tendency to rote citation in one answer of a dozen or more voter hot-button promises, some called her “over-prepared” for the debates.) She was not “over prepared,” she was “too obviously programmed.”

On the first question of the evening, the distance between Trump and Clinton became clear.

Here are some issues that impel those who are not white nationalists to hope in coming weeks Trump continues to present a stature we associate with the White House. It is obvious to me that the lifelong politician, Washington insider, 100 percent left-liberal establishment candidate, Clinton, has no business as chief executive or commander-in-chief.

1. Addressing the New York Economic Club, Trump pledged to halt all new regulations until a thorough review can be made of their costs and benefits. There is wide agreement that today federal regulations are a $2.0 trillion annual drag on the U.S. economy. The Obama administration, so far, has added $100 billion to that annual load. All of Clinton’s hundreds of promises imply nothing but acceleration of federal regulation.
2. Trump will not implement the political agenda of “environmentalism,” which is based upon the controversial hypothesis of “catastrophic global warming” over the next century. Clinton, by contrast, calls catastrophic global warming America’s future. The goal of the radical environmentalists is to shut down America’s fossil-fuel producers (natural gas, oil, and coal), the utilities and other companies that rely on them, and the automobile and other transportation systems based on them—in short. the energy that powers our economy. To replace them? Government dictates to direct every economic resource into construction of gigantic systems of solar and wind energy—now the most expensive in the world. This is not the future, the Obama administration promulgated more billion-dollar-a-year-plus regulations on environment and energy than in all other areas combined.
3. Trump pays little attention to the “identity politics” that obsess Hillary Clinton, who plays to the special demands of women versus men, Blacks versus Whites, illegal immigrants versus citizens, the “rich” versus the middle class, Black Americans versus the police, gays-lesbians-transsexuals versus the population at large—every imaginable variant on the theme that society is a ceaseless struggle of the “oppressed” for “social justice” at the hands of their “oppressors.” As President, she would choose enough new Supreme Court justices to create a majority faction of pure advocates for the claims of these supposedly aggrieved groups, replacing the slim Court majority that has tended to view all Americans as having the same equal rights to legal protection, opportunity, striving, and success—but no special privileges. Mr. Trump, we know, would not overturn the long-standing “the Reagan majority” in making his appointments.
4. Well, what­­ about the charge that tens of millions of white Americans support Trump, and not the accelerating “democratic socialism” of Clinton, because they want a racially pure white America? Trump’s vow to deal decisively with crime in predominantly black neighborhoods, and in cities at large, is viewed by Krugman as “dog whistle” racial politics.

Urban policy analyst, Heather MacDonald, of New York’s leading think-tank, the Manhattan Institute, reviewed Department of Justice statistics on race and violent crimes (except murder, a tiny percentage). Some of the highlights:

“First, we find that during the 2012/2013 period, blacks committed an average of 560,600 violent crimes against whites, whereas whites committed only 99,403 such crimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in 84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites.”

“Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time.”

“Using figures for the 2013 racial mix of the population–62.2 percent white, 17.1 percent Hispanic, 13.2 percent black–we can calculate the average likelihood of a person of each race attacking the other. A black is 27 times more likely to attack a white and 8 times more likely to attack a Hispanic than the other way around.”

 
Mr. Trump insists that America has a “huge crime problem” in its black neighborhoods and cities at large and that the answer—surprise!–is law enforcement. Mr. Krugman says Trump is appealing to bigotry of white nationalists. Hillary Clinton is a cheerleader for the group “Black Lives Matter,” which blames the entire problem on, well, white nationalists in the law-enforcement system.

Permit me an aside: Voices across America in this election are trying to persuade white Americans to view themselves as a tribe. Most Americans don’t do this, viewing themselves as individuals as likely to disagree as to agree with another white person—you know, the way I am disagreeing with Hillary Clinton and Paul Krugman. But the new and truly dangerous Liberal-Left (“democratic socialist”) chorus today is that “whites” are a tribe—with collective interests, collective responsibility, collective guilt. This tribe owes the black tribe “social justice,” especially income equality, and perhaps historical reparations.

I first encountered this insight in an article in The Federalist by David Marcus. In “How Anti-White Rhetoric Is Fueling White Nationalism,” he points at the potential catastrophe that Clinton is risking, to drive a campaign that has won her 90 percent or more of the Black vote. Of course, she directed the same race-tinged rhetoric against Bernard Sanders that she used against Barrack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary. This is not a charge leveled by her enemies. In its editorial endorsing Clinton in 2008, the New York Times warned: “Mrs. Clinton will be making a terrible mistake — for herself, her party and for the nation — if she continues to press her candidacy through negative campaigning with disturbing racial undertones…” Actually, eight years later, she is still doing it, this time to Trump—and the Times endorsed her, again.

The entire article by David Marcus is “must” reading. He writes: “White people are being asked—or pushed—to take stock of their whiteness and identify with it more. This is a remarkably bad idea. The last thing our society needs is for white people to feel more tribal. The result of this tribalism will not be a catharsis of white identity, improving equality for non-whites. It will be resentment towards being the only tribe not given the special treatment bestowed by victimhood”—by being “oppressed.”

Beneath the tattered, flimsy guise of combating racism, Clinton is hyping racial suspicions and racial tensions for all they’re worth to sweep the black vote. For all her polished rhetoric and grand-motherly folksiness, she is leading too many black Americans—there are certainly individual exceptions—back into a darker time in America and history.

I will not vote for Hillary Clinton. She represents no more than an acceleration of our nation’s slide toward outright socialism. If she wins, be prepared for a surge toward socialism not of public ownership type, but an increasing economic dictation that better fits the definition of economic fascism. And the constant resentment, anger, and street riots stirred up by identity politics–from the media to schools to colleges—fit surprisingly well with another aspect of fascism: seething racial, economic, and other collective resentments exploited by power-seeking politicians. Then, by 2020, perhaps we will be ready for a Green Party president, like Jill Stein, who is openly against the Industrial Revolution that ushered in modernity’s unprecedented prosperity in the developed world—and is the hope of millions in India, China, and elsewhere to escape poverty.

For readers attracted to the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson, I offer solace. If you vote for Johnson, you are not necessarily “throwing away” your vote. Of course, you are making a statement about principle and the libertarian vote in this election might be five times the size of that in the last election.

There are issues, of course, where I strongly disagree with Trump. When he entered the Republican primaries, he began to pay lip service to the “right to life.” No one can win the Republican nomination without doing so, but when he won, he named perhaps the best-known “right to life” advocate in Congress, Michael Pence, as his vice presidential candidate. My guess is that a President Trump will downplay the issue—as has every Republican president. But if Pence succeeds him to office, we have a problem. Second, I would like to know more (wouldn’t we all) about Trump’s proposed strategy toward Iran and the nuclear deal; a foreign policy imperative of the next administration is to honestly scrutinize Iran actions, immediately publicize and protest violations, and, if Iran persists, start escalating sanctions. If the deal can be saved by enforcement, instead of scrapped, it will be by Trump, not Clinton.

What most troubles me is Trump’s personality. I don’t mean the endless petty posing of the press as more politically correct than the boorish Trump, but the bully we see, the insecure ego that brooks no disagreement, that must giggle and quip and boast in response to criticism. Often, he is justified. His response to Khizer Khan’s silly attack at the Democratic National Convention was to be expected—and was right. But for heaven’s sake, keep it dignified—you know, presidential. Do not jiggle on stage in imitation of a physical disability of your critic; are you going to do that addressing the United Nations when Iran annoys you?

I am encouraged that a lifelong businessman could be in the White House, for the first time ever—but troubled by Trump’s apparently glamor- and power-seeking drive to build a real-estate empire with over-leveraged business empire and its spectacular debt collapse in the mid-1990s. After this over-extension, fully 20 years ago, Trump faced bankruptcy court, but has recouped his losses and apparently risen to new heights of wealth. He described the disaster and redemption in The Art of the Comeback. America right now could use a comeback.

This essay concludes with no call to arms. I cannot charge forward under the Trump colors. The final two Presidential debates probably will make up my mind.

For readers attracted to the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson, I offer solace. If you vote for Johnson, you are not necessarily “throwing away” your vote. Of course, you are making a statement about principle and the libertarian vote in this election might be five times the size of that in the last election. But, if it troubles you that, in practice, you are advancing the candidacy of Clinton, there is good news. Most likely, your vote for Johnson hurts Clinton and favors Trump in pivotal states such as Colorado.

Have it both ways. Krugman and I, by different logics, are certain that you will pay heavily for a mistake in November.
 

Related Posts:

1. 20 Reasons Objectivists and Libertarians Should Vote for Trump in 2020
2. The Debate Was “Folly”—but Ask What It Accomplished
3. An Open Letter to Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia

   

About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway contributes to Savvy Street on political economy, science, and trends in fiction, film, and culture. Walter Donway’s most recent book is Donald Trump and His Enemies: How the Media Put Trump in Office (Romantic Revolution Books: New York, September 2017). His Amazon profile can be found here