What's wrong with that last sentence? It's the inclusion of the word "suddenly". The Prez's statements that race relations in the US of A have never been better notwithstanding, the pundits tell us now that millions of Americans have been racist all along! And that, you see, is why The Donald is going to win the GOP nomination. "It's not over yet, but by Wednesday morning it might be," says the CBC's Keith Boag in "Conventional wisdom crumbles, yet again, in U.S. primaries".
The reason for Mr. Trump's popularity, they're saying now, is that he's appealing to the "latent racism" of white Americans. Trouble is, white Americans (and Canadians, Brits, Aussies, Frenchmen, Germans, Swedes, etc etc) don't like being called "racist" any more. Is it "racist" to be proud of your country's history, culture and language? Is it "racist" to have border controls and certain requirements for immigration and citizenship?
The limousine liberals and "human rights" advocates who promote massive immigration yell "racist" at people who aren't happy to welcome into their countries hundreds of 1000s of aliens who will not, indeed cannot assimilate into the culture of the majority. But the stone truth is that pro-immigration policies are antithetical to the natural human desire to associate and live with others of the same kind. Birds of a feather flock together... and the other birds can damn well flock off!
Oh... I'm so sorry... Did I just write "hate speech"? All I did was give voice to a sentiment which is now being called "racial nationalism". In the Globe and Mail, Doug Saunders, a frequent apologist for diversity, multiculturalism and all that liberal claptrap, says racial nationalism is the reason for the ascendancy of Donald Trump. He writes:
"Once upon a time, a lot of people voted not for candidates or parties but for the big, all-explaining ideas they embodied. The last century was the age of the totalizing ideology: communism, fascism, socialism, libertarianism, theocracy. Most of those big ideas have all but vanished from mainstream national politics. People generally vote for pragmatists of the left or right, who, in practice, support some variation on a market economy and a more or less pluralist society, or for charismatic individuals offering an equally ideology-free version of personal authority.
"There’s really only one totalizing ideology remaining, one overarching theory that is currently attracting voters. It is by no means a majority philosophy, but it is gaining in popularity, attracting voters who seem to hunger for a large, simple theory. That ideology is racial nationalism – the belief that each country is associated with a race, a people or a religion; that it is therefore threatened by the arrival or rise to power of different people; and that the country’s problems can be solved by preventing their arrival, ascent or empowerment.
"It’s certainly not a new idea. What’s interesting about it today is how it has filled the vacuum once occupied by other big-picture ideologies.... It appears that a lot of people voting for racial nationalists are not single-issue bigots, but rather people searching for satisfying large-scale answers, and racial resentment is the only one on offer."
As proof for that last sentence, Mr Saunders reports the findings of a large survey conducted this month by the Public Religion Research Institute. The key finding (according to Mr Saunders) is that, when given the statement "It bothers me when I come in contact with immigrants who speak little or no English", 64% of Trump supporters agreed! But fewer than half of those backing other candidates felt the same way (or admitted that they did). So Trumpers are, if not racists, at least racial nationalists. See?
But there's rather more to the survey findings than the erstwhile opinion-shaper suggesets. Follow the link and you'll discover other reasons why millions of people are going to vote for Donald Trump.
- Trump supporters are notable for the degree to which they believe society has become too soft and feminine in recent years. More than two-thirds (68%) of Trump supporters, compared to 57% of Cruz supporters, say society as a whole has become too soft and feminine. By contrast, more than six in ten Clinton supporters (64%) and Sanders supporters (69%) reject this notion.
- Nearly half (45%) of Americans report being worried that they or someone in their family will be a victim of terrorism. These Americans report much stronger support for a leader who is willing to break the rules. About six in ten (61%) Americans who say they are very worried about being a victim of terrorism agree that the country needs a leader who is willing to break rules to put things right, compared to 39% of those who are not at all concerned.
- A majority of Americans report a dim view of their current economic health, with 37% saying that their financial situation is fair and 17% saying it is poor. More than four in ten Americans say they are in good (36%) or excellent (8%) financial shape. Trump supporters do not report being in worse financial shape than Americans overall. Close to half of Trump supporters say that they are in excellent (12%) or good (34%) financial shape, while a majority say they are in only fair (35 percent) or poor (19 percent) financial shape.
The emphasis of "not" in the penultimate sentence of the previous paragraph is mine. The significance of that finding is this. Trump supporters are not poor or (economically) lower class, as the chattering classes keep telling us. They are the kind of people who fight poverty by working for a living! And they are not about to see their hard-earned money "redistributed" to those who sit idle on the front porch making babies [On the front porch?! Ed.] waiting for the "guaranteed annual income" which is the latest brainstorm of the Clintons and Sanderses and other "social Democrats".
So you see, there's more to the Appeal of The Donald than racial nationalism, although the existence of that phenomenon is not to be denied -- and nothing new, either. Mr Trump, like George Wallace in 1968 and 1972, is playing to a fundamental dissatisfaction in the populace, a populace that feels it has no voice. This makes him popular -- also (some say) dangerous and unpredictable -- but it doesn't mean there wasn't a problem in the first place.
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