How We Got Here - 2

Pete Hegseth: Fox Broadcaster-turned-secretary-of-defense of the most powerful armed forces in the world. Scary. He seems to always have had a preference for shiny, medium dark blue suits. But lately – I’m not sure when it started – he adorns his suits with a neatly folded, American flag handkerchief in his breast pocket. It turns out that has a name. Pocket square. Yeah, I had to look it up.

Proven racist displaying his patriotism via his choice of snot rag

Who else has taken to PDA’ing the American flag?

Nationalist patriotically hugging American flag. Courtesy of Amazon

Part of the mission of The Civil Conversations Project is to help you identify racists at a glance. Both men above, have proven themselves to be racist. Over the years I’ve noticed that declarations of extreme patriotism are always part and parcel of racism.

Patriotic pro-American/anti-American militia waving the flag. Fox News

Patriotic January 6^th insurrectionist flying both American flag and America’s unique hate flag newly emblazoned with a weapon of mass murder. Courtesy of NY Times

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I was intrigued about the relationship of those who proclaimed themselves to be paragons of patriotism and their simultaneous embrace of racism. So I poked around a bit and asked Google, AI, and DuckDuckGo what is the relationship between ultra patriotism and racism. Just because I had noticed it didn’t mean that I understood it.

AI’s brief response: “White supremacy is often framed as a patriotic ideology by its proponents, who claim to defend a perceived traditional American identity. Extreme patriots often hold racist beliefs as part of their ideology, which includes exclusionary and dehumanizing views about non-white groups. This racism is frequently tied to conspiracy theories and a perceived existential threat to their identity and way of life, leading to a blend of antigovernment sentiments and racial superiority beliefs.”

Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito with patriotic American flag and the Appeal To Heaven Flag adopted by the racist far right. Courtesy of Salon.com

The Southern Poverty Law Center had more in-depth comments: “When the so-called ‘Patriot’ movement burst onto the national scene in the early 1990s, it spread like fire, fueled by resentment of the government and by events at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Even after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the number of militias and similar groups expanded, hitting an all-time high of 858 groups in 1996.

‘What we’re seeing now is … the re-emerging notion of this country as Anglo-American, a white country,’ says Leonard Zeskind, a longtime analyst of the extreme right who sees strengthening radicalism. ‘That idea is being put forward in a mainstream way, and that has not happened successfully since at least before World War II.’”

White, pro-apartheid South Afrikaner Elon Musk patriotically airing his armpits and crotch, in front of the American flag. NPR

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The American Heritage Dictionary defines patriotism this way:

noun

1. Love of and devotion to one's country.

2. Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.

3. Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's compatriots; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.

But that doesn’t seem quite right, so I poked around some more. AI defines “Extreme patriotism” this way: “Extreme patriotism is often referred to as superpatriotism or ultranationalism, characterized by excessive favoritism towards one's own country, often leading to a sense of superiority over others. This form of patriotism can manifest in aggressive nationalism, where individuals prioritize their nation's interests above all else, sometimes through violent means.”

Closer maybe. But when I see an “extreme patriot”, or whatever one would call the patriotic sorts on display at the January 6 insurrection, what I see is not so much a love of country or countrymen, but a love of White countrymen. And not even all White countrymen. White countrymen that share their narrow and bigoted values.

I kept poking. At a rally in 2018 Trump thrilled the crowd by declaring, “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, OK? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist! Use that word! Use that word!”

White supremacists called it the greatest thing since Birth of a Nation the movie glorifying the KKKK and unarguably the most racist movie ever produced in the United States

Nationalist?!? I turned to the Southern Poverty Law Center again: “White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhite groups. They frequently claim that white people are persecuted by society and even the victims of a racial genocide. Their primary goal is to create a white ethnostate. Groups listed in a variety of other categories, including Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead and Christian Identity, could also be fairly described as white nationalist.”

Poking around some more trying to understand how it could be that so many people who claim to be patriots, which would seem to be an embrace of the, “All people are created equal” cornerstone of American democracy, seemingly have a deep enmity and hatred of people who do not share their lack of melanin.

I found this (abbreviated) piece in the NY Times. Although it doesn’t quite get around to really explaining ultra patriots, a.k.a. white nationalist racist, it confirms what I knew. They’re racist. It probably doesn’t explain whythey’re races because how to explain why anybody is racist, ultra patriot or not. But in working towards my commitment to help you identify racist, you now have one more arrow in your quiver. When you encounter an extreme patriot, be concerned. You might be encountering somebody who loves America. They just don’t love Americans. They don’t love you, and they certainly don’t love me.

And right here I’m going to admit to some deep and ongoing confusion. People keep scratching their heads and wondering aloud, “How did we get here?” To paraphrase Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid” …It’s the racism.

Long before he glided down his golden elevator to proclaim the start of his campaign and that Mexicans were rapist and murderers, Donald Trump was a racist.

Long before he conceived the lie that Barack Obama wasn’t eligible to be president and later, that he wasn’t our real president, because he wasn’t born in America, Donald Trump was a racist.

Long before he would not rent any of his 13,000 New York City Apartments to Black Americans until the department of Justice got involved, Donald Trump was a racist. And then in 2016 and again in 2024 America voted a person that they absolutely knew was a racist, especially the second time around, into the oval office.

Many have tried, but no politician, not even George Wallace, has been as adept at picking at America’s raw, oozing, pus-filled, malodorous wound of racism as Donald Trump has. All the things that people seem to hate, jump up and down and rant about, the core of every one of those things is Donald Trump’s racism.

How did we get here? “It’s the racism…”

By Amanda Taub

• Nov. 21, 2016

A question has been posed in a puzzled whisper in many of the nation’s living rooms and newsrooms ever since Donald J. Trump’s triumph in this month’s presidential election: What, exactly, is white nationalism?

Self-proclaimed white nationalists have happily embraced Mr. Trump’s victory and, particularly, his choice of Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist, as a win for their agenda. A barrage of groups that fight discrimination and hate speech have, in turn, criticized Mr. Bannon’s appointment, warning that his embrace of the “alt-right” movement was little more than an attempt to rebrand racism and white nationalism into something palatable enough for mass consumption.

And much of the rest of the country has been left to wonder what this unfamiliar term actually means.

While white nationalism certainly overlaps with white supremacy and racism, many political scientists say it is a distinct phenomenon — one that was a powerful but often-unseen force during the presidential election and will most likely remain a potent factor in American and European politics in coming years.

Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck University in London, has spent years studying the ways that ethnicity intersects with politics. While most researchers in that field focus on ethnic minorities, Professor Kaufmann does the opposite: He studies the behavior of ethnic majorities, particularly whites in the United States and Britain.

White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation’s culture and public life.

So, like white supremacy, white nationalism places the interests of white people over those of other racial groups. White supremacists and white nationalists both believe that racial discrimination should be incorporated into law and policy.

Some will see the distinction between white nationalism and white supremacy as a semantic sleight of hand. But although many white supremacists are also white nationalists, and vice versa, Professor Kaufmann says the terms are not synonyms: White supremacy is based on a racist belief that white people are innately superior to people of other races; white nationalism is about maintaining political and economic dominance, not just a numerical majority or cultural hegemony.

For a long time, he said, white nationalism was less an ideology than the default presumption of American life. Until quite recently, white Americans could easily see the nation as essentially an extension of their own ethnic group.

But the country’s changing demographics, the civil rights movement and a push for multiculturalism in many quarters mean that white Americans are now confronting the prospect of a nation that is no longer built solely around their own identity.

For many white people, of course, the growing diversity is something to celebrate. But for others it is a source of stress. The white nationalist movement has drawn support from that latter group. Its supporters argue that the United States should protect its white majority by sharply limiting immigration, and perhaps even by compelling nonwhite citizens to leave.

“… compelling nonwhite citizens to leave?” What…like ICE raids?

Or to dumb down all of this high falutin’ jibber jabber…“It’s the racism...”