DECEMBER 11, 2015
COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
The
time has come to admit the ugly reality. Come to your sense US citizens. Donald
Trump is not un-American. He is the embodiment of Americanism. We shudder and
cringe as he calls for keeping Muslims out of the United States and we despair
as he speaks of building a fence to keep out Mexicans. Or we continue to
support him as he does this, his poll numbers rising, his competitors dropping
to the wayside.
And for those who decry his incivility, his racism, his phobia
about everything, please do not fall into the simplistic trap of saying that
Donald is un-American. Do not claim that he misrepresents or abuses American
freedom. The American values you claim he shreds apart simply never existed.
They were the wet dream of an Americanist mindset – one peddled by liberals and
conservatives alike. The wet dream of those who fought the threat of communism
and who search for that picket fence of Chevrolet and prosperity.
Donald Trump is the embodiment of Americanism – the concrete,
living, historical Americanism of the real world.
For when Donald Trump calls for keeping out Mexicans, I say
“Operation Wetback”. I ask how anti-Mexican sentiment and policy goals are
un-American. When Texas was created out of Mexico, land stolen and ethnic
cleansing perpetrated, how is it un-American to be anti-Mexican? When has it
been “American” to care about Mexico? We have given Mexico regressive trade
deals and dictators and guns to their narcotrafficking gangs. And one cartel
has been our friend and then the next one is and then our banks have laundered
their money. And Mexicans have continued to die as a result. In the thousands
upon thousands. But Donald Trump is an aberration?
Support for wannabe-Fuhrer Trump is not some FoxNews creation.
It is not a vast right-wing conspiracy. It is indigenous to Americanism – an
Americanism that relies on the appropriated use of the term “America” to refer
to the United States. For America – in reality – stretches from the northern
tip of Canada to the southernmost reach of Chile.
Chile…where American coups and CIA-backed death squads ushered
in the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and putsched the
democratically-elected Salvador Allende – who took his life with a gun gifted
to him by Fidel Castro of Cuba.
Cuba…where the United States first cut its teeth on today’s
imperialism in a “freedom struggle” against Spain – which had little to do with
freedom and everything to do with opening markets for American capitalists.
Spain…where Americanism did not support the democratic forces of
the Republicans as it took isolated democrats in the United States to freelance
in opposition to the fascist forces of Franco. In Spain…
Spain…which was fought by American forces in the Philippines in
the name of freedom.
The Philippines…where heroic freedom fighters battled to end the
colonialism of Spain only to be re-colonized and raped and tortured and
occupied by American “allies”. In the name of freedom. In the name of America.
But Donald Trump is un-American?
In what world can liberals and conservatives wave the flag and
praise our decency, then proceed to bomb Iraq after 9/11 while praising our
troops as our boys and American heroes? In a world where American hypocrisy is
boundless. American. Hypocrisy. Americanism.
There is nothing un-American about the mass bombing of
Afghanistan and Iraq and proxy wars in Syria and arming of Indonesian
dictatorships (where one of the largest Muslim populations in the world is) and
backing for repressive regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Yemen and the
Emirates and….
There is nothing un-American about that for the CIA led coups
against secular-populist-leftwing leaders in Iraq and Iran and installed Saddam
and the Shah and Muslims suffered as a result. Realpolitik “there” is American
and yet halting immigration based on religious beliefs is un-American. Out of
sight, out of mind. Americanism can kill and repress Muslims there but we must
let a trickle into here. Hypocrisy. Americanism.
And do we care about Mexicans? Or Muslims? Truly?
In the confines of our homes where we are Americans, do we make
those harmless jokes about illegals? You know, “those people”. Our
grasscutters. The people making our pizzas. Because Mexicans make your Italian
pizzas. Do we harmlessly mimic their accents and their height and their religion
and their existence? Do we in our minds? In the confines of our American minds?
Do we see them as our “brown brothers and sisters” as if they are little brown
creatures for us to look caringly at…as if they are somehow needy simply
because they are brown and not “American”? An “American” that means “from the
United States”.
Paternalism, racism. Racism, paternalism. And innocent harmless
jokes and mimicry and…superiority above them. In our American minds. In our
American minds. And we can let some but not too many into America. Our
America. But Donald Trump is not American. Or so we say, fearful that our
paternalism and mimicry and harmless racism and nationalism may come to the
front.
Every “ching ching chong” and “ni**er” and “terrorist beard” and
all those innocent phrases and jokes and thoughts that pass in our heads and
through our lips in the confines of safe spaces of like-minded co-workers and
relatives is Americanism. This is the Americanism we hypocritically say is
un-American as Donald Trump pushes policies that give continued concrete
reality to these “harmless jokes”. Americanism.
Americanism is not welcoming the immigrant, the destitute, the
refugee, the homeless among us, the least of our brothers and sisters. It
wasn’t when Chinese Exclusion Acts were passed. It wasn’t when Filipinos were
stereotyped as sex-addicted beasts as they sought jobs in California after
their own country was pillaged by Americanism. It wasn’t when Filipinos were
hired as freak show performers in Coney Island. When their country was pillaged
and raped…by Americanism.
Americanism is capitalism incestuously bred with its children –
Nationalism and Imperialism and Racism. Donald Trump did not create this
incestuous orgy – he is merely the boorish, unrepentant pornographer who is
filming and promoting it in a way that we puritanically, yet hypocritically,
are repulsed by.
As he says the Black activist that was beaten up by Trumpites at
a campaign rally may have deserved it, we shudder. Or cheer. And yet whichever
one we do, we praise the police who daily murder and attack and abuse and
terrorize minorities – mostly unseen. In America. But they are heroes in Blue.
Who protect us. From those Mexican illegals on our streets and those Blacks who
will shoot us and those shiftless Asians and those terrorist Arabs and maybe
from those gay Europeans who want to seduce us.
And we peddle Americanist values every time we say “ching ching
chong” and “ni**er” and “terrorist beard” in our minds and in our Americanist
safe zones where we can truly have freedom of speech. For freedom of speech is
Americanism. A freedom to attack and murder and verbally and mentally and
economically abuse all while having the freedom to say that Donald Trump is an
aberration. An aberration who will likely be one of two candidates for
president…of America.
“Ching ching chong” for anyone from Asia – for don’t fool
yourself because you see Vietnamese as Chinese as Japanese as Thai as
Cambodian…just more “ching ching chongs” – is our demi-imperialism…the same
imperialism that dropped napalm over southeast Asia. Americanism. An
Americanism that can be behind the Mamasapano murders in the Philippines,
setting back peace negotiations between Muslims and the State…but out of sight,
out of mind. An Americanism of Pemberton killing Jennifer Laude. An
Americanism of…
For Donald Trump is Americanism. Donald Trump is not an
aberration.
Americanism is a nationalism that we pretend does not exist. “We
cannot be nationalistic for we love all people and care for them.” Our Americanist
wet dream. Yet just like those dreams, we wake up, feeling happy, yet realize
that we are back in reality. Solidarity and concern and compassion doesn’t
exist in reality any more than the sexy lover we had in our dream. Our thoughts
of American values of compassion are the dreams we peddle in our minds and
elucidate for public consumption. A schizophrenic, bipolar mentality that tells
us we are good when we are not. Our wet dreams of Americanist hypocrisy. And
Donald Trump is the alarm clock that wakes us up from this dream.
For Donald Trump is not a surprise. He is not an aberration.
Genocide against the indigenous peoples…
Kidnapping and enslavement of Africans…
Ethnic cleansing of the remaining indigenous peoples…
Lynchings of “freed” Africans…
Laws to keep out Chinese…
Invasion, occupation, torture of the Philippines…
The Red Scare and Palmer Raids…
Concentration camps for Japanese…
Nuclear bombs dropped on Japan…
McCarthyism…
Mobutu…
Suharto…
Napalm…
Coups and death squads in Latin America…
Romero’s killers…
Racial profiling and mass imprisonment of minorities…
Over 1 million dead in Iraq from sanctions that were considered
“worth it”…
Mass surveillance of citizens…
“Shock and awe” against Iraq in response to attacks by Saudis…
An incomplete list of Americanism…
But who could have seen Donald Trump’s rise to power? Shocking
and Un-American!
So raise a Budweiser to Americanism, my fellow citizens. The
dystopia you deny for public consumption is here in the flesh. Your inner
thoughts can now be one with reality. You can be safe to be American. The
real America. The concrete America of concrete policies and actions throughout
history and the present.
For Donald Trump is America.
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