Saving the Brand

Immigration, Race and Re-election

Let’s tell stories.

The Trump real estate empire needed money. Developers work with borrowed money and the Trump business was about to lose its last American financier, Deutsche Bank. Links were made to Moscow and Saudi Arabia. Money was available. Meetings were held. Putin’s people. Crown Prince Ben Salmon. These meetings are well documented. Whether Trump people were aware at that time of the Russian mastery at using social media to deliver well-crafted propaganda messages is not known.

And with new investors on the line came the challenge: what could the real estate mogul and TV reality show star do as master salesman to increase the visibility of the Trump brand? And so he did what he had been saying he wanted to do for years: run for President.

It started with the walk down the escalator of the Trump Tower in Manhattan. At that moment two things were true: he knew exactly what his issue would be and the adoring crowd waiting for him were actors hired to do the job.

The announcement of the candidacy was as no other had been: calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and suggesting that all immigrants from Mexico and the Central and South American countries – all those brown people – were coming to America to take advantage of us, our money and our jobs. While that was his first direct link between immigration and racism, we can’t blame Donald Trump for what he knew: American racism goes way, way back, is still with us today and he was going to take advantage of it.

WHITE SUPREMACY

Everyone has a story. As they showed in Charlottesville, Va. last year, the neo-Nazi link held dear by white supremacists goes on…expanding beyond their hate and fear of African-Americans to immigrants from south of the American border.

And this is their justification: in literature and organized social media attacks funded by the Scaife Family of Philadelphia- always financially behind every virulent reactionary cause – and supported by the Trump Wall of Words. White supremacists, white nationalists point to the American Indians who ‘owned’ this nation and then lost it and were eventually ‘imprisoned’ on reservations far from their homes, because they allowed white men to enter and populate the country.

Now they say, brown people are coming through present immigration policies –illegally ‘invading’ our country in waves to take advantage of everything that America offers: education, health care, welfare support and a life far better than they have known before.

America’s acting head of Immigration Policy has gone so far as to indicate that the Emma Lazarus sonnet – “Give me your tired, your poor…” really was talking about people who could come to America without needing to be on public assistance and that it was written to celebrate the migration of Europeans who could not succeed in Europe’s class-based society. Lady Liberty was inaugurated in 1886 to celebrate liberty; the poem was affixed to the statue in 1903.

The attitude that people coming here now just come because they can get government help while difficult to swallow, is essentially embedded in American history.

LOOKING BACK

We all know about slavery and the slave trade and the reality that founders of this nation were farmers; that cotton was king and that slave labor cut the cost of raising cotton so that large profits were possible and real. The slavery story is a constant. Though he freed them, Lincoln was a supporter of the idea that ‘Negroes’ should return to the countries from which they were taken or be sent to an area somewhere where they could form their own nation.

We remember the pictures of former slaves being hung throughout the Southern tier for one infraction or another…from the beginning of their ‘freedom’ in the 19th Century into almost midway through the 20th Century. Emancipation from slavery was one thing: acceptance as an equal human being quite another.

We remember the fight against discrimination and for equal housing and the way landlords throughout the country made every effort to keep ‘the coloreds’ out.

We know that the famous ‘Head Start” program for poor children came about because teachers’ unions in school systems throughout the country would not accept teachers who were black.

We remember the attack dogs and high-power fire hoses turned on Martin Luther King’s peaceful marchers.

But it is wrong to think that America’s history of discrimination was limited to black people.
There was the forced march of Native Americans from their homes on the East Coast to the then barren lands of the Midwest and the ‘reservations’ that became their homes…then and now. Many died on that march and the sad story of the results of their national imprisonment continues to this day.

In 1882 the Immigration Act was passed to prevent immigration by those who were likely to become a ‘public charge’. That act is being reinforced now by the Administration.

In that same year the Chinese Exclusion Act limited the acceptance of those people of color.

It should never be forgotten that at the start of war with the Japanese in World War II, the Roosevelt administration interred 200,000 Japanese-Americans in prison camps and kept them there until the end of the war. The majority of them were born and raised in America, yet when the roundup came their status as American citizens did not count.

So the history of discrimination exists and sometimes all that changes is the ways in which discrimination is applied and to whom. No matter the origin of birth or color of the skin, that discrimination intends to keep people of color on the outside of American life…no matter how successful they may be lucky enough to become.

RACIAL ARSONITS

And now the full force of government seems to be aimed at immigrants fleeing from crime, intolerance, poverty…even death. America no longer wants you no matter how perilous your life is back home.

This is a cry unheard of in modern times. America is a nation of immigrants. People come here to work and make better lives.

Live in California. Live in Texas. Live in New Jersey. See Mexicans, Guatamalans, Peruvians, Hondurans at work doing those things that others will not do.

study done some years ago indicates that those coming to America expecting ‘help’ from our government are most often Canadians coming from a country where government services are widespread.

There is significant evidence that beyond building his brand to find new funding sources, Mr. Trump had no real belief that he would become President. There is the acknowledged story that he spent 45 minutes alone in a hotel room on Election Night after the numbers proved that he had indeed defeated Hillary Clinton.

We do not know what he was thinking that night but we do know what he is thinking now. His Father taught him that life has no use for ‘losers’; that word when used by him is surely a curse word. He has no intention of being a loser and what we are about to see in the year ahead as 2020 becomes a reality and the Presidency is on the line is a Trump we have not seen before. He has already shown us that he will say and do anything to strengthen and build on his base. He is able and willing to stretch ‘anything’ beyond what we have ever seen from anyone seeking elected office.

All we know for sure now is that 43% of America thinks he is doing what should be done.