The Un-United States

The results of the recent presidential election make clear that a majority of American voters reject Donald Trump but do not reject the Republican Party; witness the “down-ballot” success of Republican congressional and state candidates.

But the behavior of these Republicans, together with the behavior of Trump advocates in general, makes something else clear.

America’s racists, bigots and white-supremacists — who have always been with us — but who tend to keep their heads down in the presence of a truly democratic government, have under Trump exploded into cocksure, costumed, multi-parading view.

These Trump neo-Nazis don’t care that Trump constantly lies, that he is a crook, that he has repeatedly acted to degrade women, that he has conspired with the Russian government to influence and disrupt our elections, that he has damaged the lives of thousands of immigrant children, that he has threatened the health and safety of millions of Americans due to his hands-off policy regarding the world-spreading disease Covid-19; that he has acted out of spite to delay and discredit the voice of American voters, that he has used his office to line his own and his families’ pockets; that he threatens national security by crippling President-elect Biden’s efforts to complete a rational administration transition, that he has proved himself repeatedly a narcissistic sociopath, strutting but incompetent.

Like the Nazis of another era, Trumpers echo anything the Dear Leader says: “Lock her Up!’; “Rigged election!”; “Climate Change a hoax!” “COVID-19 is Chinese!”; etc.

Trump’s “Republicans” care about one thing: he has pledged to keep non-whites out of the US, to encourage KKK-types to flourish and to deprive non-white Americans and immigrant Mexicans, South Americans, Afghans, Lebanese, Africans and the like of their voting and humanitarian rights.

These Republicans have enthusiastically applauded Trump’s illegal, unethical and/or morally outrageous actions or have, in classic cowardice, kept silent as support.

They are the Americans, fearful and hating, who cannot stand to know or acknowledge that in a generation, non-whites will become a major plurality in this country. White political and social domination must, in their eyes, be preserved – and at any cost.

They will not change. They will not be reasoning with you. They do not seek to be part of a “united” U.S. They have found their forever champion, and now make their bigotry a battle flag, as fervent and committed as were their 1860s forebears.

Decent, fair-minded citizens have one effective choice:

Destroy this Republican Party for at least a generation.

Not by violent word or deed, but by rejecting for any elected office a known Republican or known right-wing enthusiast: school-board, local council, supervisor — any office that provides opportunity for a further career in support of the foulness of recent years. Choke the plant by severing its roots.

I would go further: If you have a choice, do not socialize with known right-wing advocates. Unless family, work or other circumstances make contact inevitable, leave them to isolated congregation in their own enclaves.

Threaten no one; hurt no one.

Just consign them to the rewards deserved by their racist degradation.