On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning recent tweets and comments by Trump, claiming they “have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.” The final vote was 240 for and 187 against in the Democrat-controlled body, following party lines except for four Republicans and one independent who crossed the aisle, Sputnik reported.
This past weekend, Trump directed tweets at four members of the House - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley - who have spoken openly on the issue of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers for undocumented migrants entering the US.
“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough,” Trump tweeted Sunday about the four women of color.
“It speaks so much to how Donald Trump has eliminated the dog whistle politics and gone to the foghorn,” Puryear told Loud & Clear hosts John Kiriakou and Brian Becker.
“Obviously we’ve known for years Republicans have used the Southern strategy, whatever they want to call it, to really try to mobilize the policy of white racial grievance” Puryear said, referring to a Republican Party strategy, which first emerged in 1964, to gain political support from white voters in the South who were angered by the end of legal racial segregation by deepening racism against black people.
“The collapse of the Jim Crow-style, materially-based white privilege system - and concomitant with that, of course, deindustrialization and other things - have had a similar shock on the community and the lens through which many of those individuals see those struggles,” Puryear said. “I think Trump recognized that. I think he skillfully exploited that in the election and understood that was the lens through which so many people saw the policy issues.”
“These other Republicans, they don’t want to lose primaries. They can’t afford to go against it, because going against Trump means going against this racist group identity-style of politics that I think Trump has very skillfully manipulated to get into power and maintain popularity with his base.”
According to Puryear, Trump is “driving” the “white supremacist world view.”
“I think Trump is obviously driving it. I think a lot of people have forgotten how aggressively he pushed the birther issue,” referring to Trump's erroneous statements that former US President Barack Obama was not born in the US and that his birth certificate was fake.
“I do believe now, for his own purposes as a candidate, he is turning back to try to generate these sorts of divisions. I don’t think it's possible for Trump to succeed in a context in which anyone starts to look at the problems they want to face and are looking for real solutions. [Trump needs to maintain the] overall white supremacist world view …. [or else people] will start to see that the jig is up and most of this is just a cover for his policies that only benefit the 1%,” Puryear noted, adding that although the Democratic establishment calls out Trump for his racist remarks, they serve the same “corporate masters.”
“The Democrats will often speak to ‘Trump is racist,’ but they are not actually drawing attention to the misdirection play, because quite frankly, many Democrats want to serve the same corporate masters. The Democrats aren’t able to mobilize as big of a fightback as I think they possibly could because of the nature of their policies … which don’t touch on the deeper realities of why white supremacy exists, the role it serves, and counterpose them with direct and deliberate policies that would obviously help all people regardless of race,” Puryear told Sputnik, also noting that there has been a rise in neo-conservative, right-wing agendas in the US.
