Jamelle Bouie: Donald Trump Is Sending a Message

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/why_donald_trump_invited_a_racist_celebrity_to_the_white_house.html

Donald Trump Is Sending a Message
Why the president invited this racist celebrity to the White House.
By Jamelle Bouie



snip//

If cultural representation is part of what the president does, then these visitors reflect Trump’s base, nothing more and nothing less. Palin rode her paeans to “real America” in the 2008 presidential election to a reality television career before settling as a frequent presence in conservative news and entertainment. (She was also an early and barely coherent endorser of Trump.) Kid Rock is a staple of the white, blue-collar entertainment circuit, and Nugent is a vocal advocate for gun ownership and hunting, who roots his message in a kind of white rural identity (and who also, you may have heard, wrote “Cat Scratch Fever”).

But there’s more at work in this picture than just representation—additional meaning that isn’t too hard to extract. As a candidate for vice president, Palin wasn’t just an avatar of folksy traditionalism, she was a demagogue who attacked Obama as a racialized other, a quasi-foreigner who “palled around with terrorists.” And with these attacks, Palin presaged Trump’s rise to prominence on the strength of “birtherism,” the conspiracy theory that Obama is not an American citizen and is also possibly a Muslim. Kid Rock wasn’t as outwardly hostile to the former president—though, in one interview, he knocked him as “Obummer”—but his image is rooted in a similar culture of opposition and resentment, where you fly the Confederate flag and tell black protesters to “kiss my ass.”

Then there’s Nugent, who made racism his signature during the Obama years. In 2012, he wondered if it would have been better for the Confederacy to have won the Civil War, thus saving “limited government.” In 2013, he blasted Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for speaking in “Ebonic mumbo-jumbo.” That same year, writing for right-wing conspiracy website World Net Daily, Nugent blamed Trayvon Martin’s death on “the same mindless tendency to violence we see in black communities across America.” He later called Martin a “dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe.” On Twitter, he’s called Obama supporters “subhuman varmints,” adding that “Pimps, whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters have a president to destroy America.” Most infamously, he denounced Obama himself as a “subhuman mongrel.” And this is not to detract from a litany of misogynist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments. That is who the president brought to the White House. And like other presidential meetings, it means something.

Donald Trump built his political brand on racist conspiracy theories and rode to the White House on a wave of reactionary white rage, stoked by his demagogic campaign against Muslims, Hispanic immigrants, black activists, and assorted foreigners. Trump thrives on this anger, and he’s collected a coterie of celebrities—especially Palin and Nugent—who do the same. He is, in other words, a president who ran a racist campaign, meeting with men and women who sell racial defiance to an angry multitude of white Americans.

That image, of Trump and his visitors gathered around the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, sends a clear and unmistakable message. It’s one part cultural representation and one part cultural repudiation. It’s an attack on Obama, his legacy, and the ethos of inclusion he brought to the White House. And it’s a not-so-subtle declaration of victory. We took our country back, and now you have to live with it.

[JHan]

1. Boom! there it is.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Dumbshit doesnt understand what he is fomenting

While all he cares about is money and power, he is creating the potential for a race war.

But wait, isnt this so much better than that private server woman!

[stevenleser]

3. Sadly, I can't disagree with a single word. nt

[spanone]

4. a racist invites racists. history will not be kind to 'us'

[Moral Compass]

5. Unfortunately, this guy is spot on.

[gratuitous]

6. Next time, President Trump?

Try to invite guests who are at least housebroken. I mean, really? The hitter, the quitter and the shitter are who you invite to the People's White House?

[babylonsister]

8. The hitter, the quitter and the shitter...

[ismnotwasm]

7. Clearly true

As repulsive as that is. Republicans this is yours--I'm glad I don't own it.

[wildeyed]

9. But that also means he is further alienating the left.

His party would be waaaaay happy if we would dial back the townhalls and protests. But we won't because Trump keeps baiting us with cheap shots like this one.

So either he is a trash-talking moron who learned nothing from the first kick of the mule (completely plausible) OR he is having trouble holding his base support and is trying to shore it up with cheap stunts like this one. There is some kind of Twitter slap-fight occurring among Cernovich and some lesser know luminaries of the white supremacy movement. Some seem to be mad at Trump too. Trouble in paradise..... And he got nothing done in the first 100 days. No wall, no Obamacare repeal, didn't brand China a currency manipulator, no tax cuts, got really confused about who he supports in Syria and oh yeah, lost an aircraft carrier. And drip drip drip on #TrumpRussia. More trouble.....