Charlottesville–the latest name in a geographical tour of white supremacist outrages. On Saturday, I was watching the news just as many of us were. I have fabulous friends so I reached out to them for guidance on what to do and how to think about what was unfolding before my eyes. An MSNBC commentator felt that Charlottesville was an inflection point because of the coalescence of white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups.
My dear friend Howard Moore, Jr. responded as follows.
The talking head on TV who pronounced the disorders in Charlottesville to be a historical “inflection point” owes the nation an apology. He overlooked the fact such moments in our history are routine.
The only difference here, based on broadcast visuals, is: it was mostly white on white violence. Of course, that makes it epic like the murders at Kent State, but the murders at Jackson State and South Carolina State were only unfortunate incidents.
LBJ was President but the door had closed on his Presidency and the Great Society; opened for Nixon and a right wing surge which led to Trump, after navigating two speed bumps, Bill Clinton and Obama. Remember, Nixon laid down and implemented the
The Republican strategy to capture the Deep South and racist elements across the nation, labeled “the southern strategy.”
This was a lesson learned from Goldwater’s defeat in 1964 when Goldwater only had a conservative message without strong covert racial appeal. Racial appeal had to be covert to accommodate the Civil Rights Movement and the recently enacted Civil Rights Act of 1964, which strangled Jim Crow.
The existence of the Soviet Union and the emerging independence of resource-rich Third World nations mandated a new arrangement with once colonized nations — a do over at home and abroad. Overt racism at home was a hindrance.
The administration of President Woodrow Wilson was as racist, if not more so than Trump’s. However, Wilson was not the idiot Trump seems to be. Trump only appears to be an idiot because past Presidents in our life times have not so aggressively attempted to create a fascist state with an all-wise supreme leader.
Trump’s put downs of the media, the courts, the Republican Party, congressional leaders, and even members of his own administration is intended and designed to leave him standing as the Supreme Leader who presides over a flourishing economy and protects us from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Our emphasis must be political.
Control of government is critical in order to identify, apprehend, prosecute, and convict violent racist organizations and cells across the country.
Control of government is also critical to assist private initiatives and programs to continue or resume transition of our country into the one it claims to be and must become to have a future.
In the process, there will continue to be inflectional points or events, some seized upon and others ignored. The true resistance, however, must keep its eyes on the prize: the power which flows from control of government.
~ Howard Moore, Jr.