FRENETIC and race-based electioneering is America’s fate for the next eight months. The stakes couldn’t be higher for America and the rest of the world in a consequential presidential election that will test the nation’s meritocratic foundations and reveal its true commitment to the ideals of a free and open society, civil liberties, and even human decency.
On account of his bloviating and populist rantings, it’s become crystal clear that Donald Trump is a danger to all of the above-mentioned democratic and human virtues – spouting absurdly discriminatory rhetoric under the guise of wanting to “Make America Great Again” (he has even filed a trademark application to protect that slogan). Now there is little doubt that his presence in the presidential race has had a wretched effect on race relations in America – taking recourse in a bogus slogan that has proved to be really just a dog-whistle strategy for saying “Let’s Make America White Again”.
Although the practice of dog whistling has been rampant in American electoral politics for the last several decades (remember Richard Nixon’s appeal to “law and order” at the height of the struggle for civil rights), the term itself is said to have originated in Australia to describe the coded rhetoric used by former Prime Minister John Howard (for instance, “un-Australian” and “mainstream”) to appeal to white Australian voters. For the enlightenment of those not familiar with the term “dog whistle”, the New Urban Dictionary defines it as “a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is “in the know” will take away the secret, intended message.”
Tony Quinn, a Republican political analyst in California, has concluded that Trump knows perfectly well how to dog whistle the race card, suggesting further that his racially-loaded rhetoric does not at all target white Europeans. In a recent interview, he asserted: “The Republican electorate is overwhelmingly white and elderly. In 2009, Republicans were mystified that an African American with a funny name took over the country. Then their worst fears were realized when his appointees and his policies seemed to many to favour non-whites over white people; and in these seven years deep white resentment has built up.”
Apropos of Mr. Trump’s outlandish claims that America is weak and needs to be rescued from its downward spiral, the reality and statistics on the performance and strength of America’s economy do not support that contention. The United States is indubitably the planet’s only superpower and has sat on top of the world for almost a century. Furthermore, it remains the world’s largest economy, has the largest military by far, and its companies and entrepreneurs are notable pioneers and leaders of the ICT Revolution.
Since President Obama has often been accused by Republicans of contributing to America’s ostensible “weakness”, it’s both instructive and edifying to note that under his watch the U.S. economy recovered from the Great Recession of 2008 brought on by the misguided macroeconomic policies of former President George W. Bush and the uncontrolled excesses of the hypertrophied and dysfunctional financial sector. One can even argue that if America today is less successful than in previous decades, it’s probably because its own runaway success has made it complacent and sclerotic.
Yet Donald Trump, whose dog whistles have been heard loud and clear by the most incorrigible racists from the Old South, has never been interested in facts and evidence – his sole intention being to undermine America’s democracy by exploiting the insecurities of the undiscerning and preying on the angst of an electoral cohort, mostly white Christians, in order to win the presidency. Mr Trump together with his Republican colleagues continues to use coded expressions such as “food stamps”, “we’ll bring back the glory days of America” and “America doesn’t have smart leaders anymore” as surreptitious appeals to the worst prejudices of certain segments of the GOP base. Further compounding the situation, I believe, is the seemingly innocuous use of the term “non-whites” by the mainstream media which probably helps perpetuate prejudices against minorities and delude us by distorting our perception of the true electoral make-up of contemporary American society.
In any event, the rhetorical deception coming from the Republicans reminds me of Mitt Romney’s “vision of American society” when he defined it as “makers and takers”. His many equivocations as a Republican candidate during the 2012 presidential election are well documented – when he often delivered one message to the overall electorate while at the same time delivering quite a different message to private fundraisers. How can we forget Mr. Romney’s infamous “48, 49 percent” remark about President Obama’s voters who he claimed “pay no income tax”?
The purveyor of unmitigated gloom that is Donald Trump, has conveniently ignored the fact that the social, economic and electoral demographics in America have changed dramatically and that America’s strength is derived from its multiculturalism, external forces of change and meritocracy. Thus, I have difficulties comprehending the Republican Party’s pathological obsession with CONSERVATISM in a country built by immigrants and which has prospered on the entrepreneurship, dynamism, resources and skills of Arabs, Europeans, Jews, Hispanics, Blacks and Asians. The fact that America is the only developed country without a “CULTURE MINISTER” is testimony to the fact that its socio-cultural makeup is too diverse to warrant “the advocacy, promotion and systemization of a single American culture”. Perhaps this is the reason why Americans by and large make greater reference to shared values and constitutional rights rather than collective culture.
Of course, by no means am I suggesting that the practice of dog whistling is only racially motivated and is only prevalent in countries with predominantly Caucasian populations. In fact, I could identify plenty of examples of it in society and politics right here in Saint Lucia. However, dear reader, I’ll let sleeping dogs lie and allow you to figure this out yourself, especially in an election season when you’re most guaranteed to be hit by some rhetorical dog dung.
For comments, write to [email protected] – Clement Wulf-Soulage is a Management Economist, Published Author and Former University Lecturer.