Why America needs to own up to her evils that are always hidden behind the cloak of self-righteousness
For the last six months, the American
elite establishment has conducted a Taliban-like campaign of
vilification against the front-runner for the Republican presidential
nomination, Donald Trump.
He has been accused (and correctly so)
of xenophobia, racism, sexism, extremism and every negative ism one can
think of. His own party has called out its big names that have accused
him of being a fraud and a conman. Every institution in America –
political party, civil society group, mass media house, think tank and
the professoriate of any heft has thrown the kitchen sink at him.
Trump has said everything that would
bring the candidacy of a presidential aspirant to a quick and
ignominious end. He has called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists. He has
called for a total ban on all Muslims entering America. He has thrown
journalists out of his press conferences. He viciously insults and
belittles his opponents. He has threatened to punch a heckler. He has
boasted about the size of his penis.
He has denigrated women. He has said he
will kill families of terrorists and carpet bomb the Middle East. Yet in
spite of this (or perhaps precisely because of it) his poll numbers
keep going up and up and he keeps winning and winning. How does he
manage to annoy the entire American elite establishment and remain on
top? How can someone so vilified by America’s powerful weapons of mass
propaganda defy all the laws of political gravity? How can someone who
has broken every taboo of America’s self acclaimed political culture
excite the passions and the imagination of the American public?
Even his enemies in the mass media
cannot stop talking about him, thereby helping grow his brand. The
American population is rebelling against its self appointed priests of
that nation’s political morality who have dominated the scene for far
too long largely through deceit and lies.
It seems over the years, the American
public has grown wary of the pretense and political correctness of its
leaders. And this may have a lot to do with the effect of social media
on political conversations in that country. For once, the masses of
American people can debate their biases, prejudices and feelings without
the intermediation of their corporate controlled traditional media.
In Trump they have found an ally who
expresses their feelings without euphemism. Trump’s critics claim that
his positions go against “American values” of internationalism,
inclusiveness, democracy, freedom, tolerance, color-blindness, etc.
However, this is a myth.
The American republic was founded in
1776 with a clear statement of values that “all men are born equal” and
promised democracy, liberty and freedom as the nation’s treasured
values. However, America has consistently failed to live up to these
values. After writing these words, America proceeded to exclude poor
whites and women from voting rights, continued to enslave its black
population under one of the most cruel slave systems ever known and then
went on to commit genocide against native Americans.
It took 90 years to end slavery – and
not through America’s much lauded “democratic institutions” – but
through a civil war and an Emancipation Proclamation that was passed
dictatorially. It took another 100 years for America to finally pass a
major civil rights legislation that guaranteed black people the right to
vote in 1965.
In the interim period, however, black
people were subjected to an apartheid system of segregation,
discrimination and exclusion. It took 100 years for America to give all
white men the vote. It took 145 years for America to give the vote to
women. Since the 1980s the America republic has continued to oppress
black people through a brutal drug war that has led to mass
incarceration of millions of black males.
It has continued to discriminate against
women through less pay for equal work. It has continued to keep Native
Americans in reserves and poverty. It has continued to deny care to its
poor. It has consistently invaded and indiscriminately bombed other
nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Laos, Iraq and
Yemen.
America has sponsored
extremist/terrorists organisations to destabilise Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Angola, etc. It has sponsored coups
and assassinated leaders of nations it does not like and propped corrupt
dictators that serve her interests. When it fought Japan during
WorldWar Two, America criminalised an entire people based on their
ethnic identity by interning all Japanese Americans into concentration
camps.
After 9/11 in 2001America introduced
torture, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, begun kidnapping suspects
from their homes and holding others without trial in illegal detention
facilities. It has introduced mass surveillance that allows it to
eavesdrop on telephone calls, emails and chats of all her citizens,
enemies and allies indiscriminately and with impunity. I am aware this
is a one sided presentation of America but I am only using America’s
style when it is talking about nations it does not like. With that
knowledge, I would like to ask American elites who claim Trump is going
against “American Values” to explain to us how different he is from the
rest. The only difference that I see is that Trump says openly what
America does every day.
American politicians on both the right
and the left have only been adept at public relations, hiding their
deep-seated religious and racial prejudices against Hispanics, Muslims,
Blacks and the poor behind high sounding but empty claims to possess
values they never uphold.
The other thing is that America has been
using what George Orwell called Double Speak. It has been torturing
suspects but calling it “enhanced interrogation methods”, kidnaping
people from their homes and taking them to illegal detention facilities
around the world but calling it “rendition” and indiscriminately bombing
and killing innocent civilians but calling it “collateral damage.”
All that Trump has done is to remove the
pretense by going “native.” Trump is not going to change the nature of
the American state – its violent imperialism, its cruel and sadistic
policies against racial minorities, its prejudices against Muslims and
people of color, etc. Rather he will remove the disguise of hypocrisy,
the mask of double-speak, the veneer of sophistication and the veil of
self-righteousness and leave the emperor naked. Trump is a breath of
fresh air into the stale political atmosphere of lies and deceit that
characterises the American political elite. Trump has laid America bare
for the world to see. He has made all see America for what it actually
is.
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