Violent and heinous language is nothing new for Trump’s idiolect. From the beginning of his presidential campaign in 2015, he injected fears into white Americans that all Mexicans were ‘rapists’ and ‘drug traffickers’, illegally entering the ‘land of the free’ to attack U.S citizens. Of course, then Trump birthed the idea of his ‘wall’ to keep these non-white heathens out, repeating his rhetoric that Mexican immigrants are ‘attacking’ at the boarders. In 2018, he gravely insulted Haitian’s by remarking they live in ‘shitholes’, questioning “why do we need Haitians?” “take them out”. Then, in 2017 we saw Trump enact a 90 day travel ban between Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, Somalia and Sudan to name a few, and the U.S. In his ban he repeated his favourite rhetoric that these ‘aliens’ presented concern of terrorism.
Trump’s derogatory language furthers this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy which we often see Western countries adopting in relation to non-white people. Throughout his career as a ‘politician’ (or a dirty businessman that rose to the top via daddy’s generous ‘loan’) he has bolstered this dichotomy and created an even wider divide between his supporters and the rest of American citizens. Trump’s language has not only been insulting, violent and crude - we all remember what he said about his desire to sleep with his own daughter- but it encourages police brutality. As long as Trump has had a voice in the political sphere, he has always had influence over his reckless supporters and the American police, who seem to be in cahoots with the Trump brigade.
In response to the nation-wide and international protests in outrage at the murder of George Floyd, on May 28th Trump tweeted ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’. This phrase has circulated for decades, originating from Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida where he declared his encouragement of violence in response to the increase in crime rate in 1967. For years after, the NAACP complained about the treatment of black communities by Miami police. Headley’s response… “we don’t mind being accused of police brutality.
You might be thinking, this was in 1967, times have changed, etcetera, etcetera. For Trump to repeat this urge for violence and force echoes the feelings and wants of many political and police officials in the 1960s in regards to civil rights and black communities pleading for human rights. Simply shoot.
I’ll make it plain, if Trump had used this kind of language about the storming of the U.S Capitol on January 6th, if he had directly ordered police officers to shoot rioters, the outcome of the events we saw unfold last week may have ended differently. Would it have ended with police officers helping rioters out of the Capitol, many of whom were heavily armed. Would this courtesy have been shown by the police if Trump had used language of such indignation and brutality against rioters? And I’ll keep it simple once more, if the rioters were black republicans, the police would have fired shots regardless of Trump’s deference towards his supporters.
The reality is, Trump did instruct his ‘Save America Rally’ (as he so put it). I quote “I want to thank you. It's just a great honour to have this kind of crowd and to be before you and hundreds of thousands of American patriots who are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of our glorious Republic.”
The hypocrisy is screaming! Trump speaks of how his brigade is ‘committed to the honesty of our election’ is the biggest double standard I’ve heard him say throughout this whole election period. Trump was actively commanding this ‘stop the steal’ rally, telling people to travel across the country in the middle of a raging pandemic all for the sake of democracy that he doesn’t even uphold.
Trump’s cry-baby fit, suffering the symptoms of a sore loser, goes on for a while (the transcript is available here) and he repeatedly thanks his deluded Republican supporters. And then, taking Mr Trump’s warm welcome (“but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them, please?”) thousands stormed the Capitol.
Not to diverge any further, but I wanted to set the scene of what led up to the riots on January 6th. Following this, however, Trump’s reaction was strikingly different from his outrage at the BLM protests last summer. I have seen many black people, mostly on Twitter, speaking out on how the mob of Republicans rioting, or throwing a hissy fit might be a more appropriate description, because Trump lost the election, can not be compared to black people simply protesting for their human rights to be respected. At least 25 Americans were killed during BLM protests. Hundreds of others injured by rubber bullets, tear gas and excessive force by police while protesting against the very treatment black people have received for decades.
Yes, the two events are incomparable. but the responses by the president, to me anyway, further paint this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dichotomy which Trump has habitually instilled in Americans from the beginning of his excruciatingly slow 4 years.
"I know your pain. I know your hurt” [...] “we can’t play into the hands of these people. we have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special”
Does this remind you of anything? It’s basically the ‘very fine people’ speech Trump gave in the aftermath of Charlottesville, where the ‘Unite the Right’ rally took place with white supremacists waving confederate flags, holding various merchandise with large swastika’s plastered all over, and ended with James Alex Fields Jr. ramming his car into a crown of counter-protesters. In the same way that the domestic terrorism of neo-nazis and white supremacists mimicked the scenes at Charlottesville, Trumps reaction was one of compassion, love and admiration for these ‘fine’ people. He literally said ‘we can’t play into their hands’, overtly crafting a further divide between democrats and republicans. His sympathy for neo-Nazis, his declaration of love and gentle encouragement that the rioters should make a head home, where they can rest their heads and prepare for another day of being racist, domestic terrorists is absurd to me. Trump, one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet… applauding domestic terrorism, is terrifying.
White Trump’s presidency is coming to a close, the era of Trumpism is still raging. ‘Trumpism’, for those unaware with this neologism, is defined as ‘the policies and political ideas of the US president Donald Trump’. Throughout his 4 years, the man has said some heinous and unforgivable things, ranging from “laziness is a trait in blacks” to the infamous “grab them by the pussy”. Note in the former quote, Trump’s deliberate use of ‘blacks’ collectively identifies black people as one ‘thing’, stripping a level of humanity and othering the black community. Again in the latter, Trump uses ‘them’ so nonchalantly, telling us more than enough about his attitude to women.
These kind of things are Trumpisms, and while some might not class these as his ‘political ideas’, politics is deeply intertwined with race relations and feminism, with Trump
being a star candidate for a political figure who is racist and anti-feminism (...and outright sexist...and a predator, but that’s besides the point). What I’m getting at is that Trump's presidency will end but his ‘Trumpisms’ will live on. The one thing he has done successfully in his time in office is reinforce the fact that ‘freedom of speech’ perpetuates racism, homophobia, sexism and xenophobia. His outlandish words show the word that this is acceptable.
Thankfully, with rumours of his impeachment and invoking the 25th amendment to have Trump removed (you know, because he’s a danger to the world and should be locked up for a very very long time) gives me hope for the remaining few days before Biden’s inauguration.
However, I predict Trumpism will outlive its creator, despite his inability to voice his opinion on social media following his ban. There have been rumours of Trump forming a separate party and while I deem this unlikely (but it’s 2021, anything is possible), the principle still stands. Racism and white supremacy is raging alongside this pandemic, making life so difficult for sane Americans, and the rest of the world.
Whenever you have a person sitting in a position of power and he gives license to individuals to carry out the most harmful and heinous acts based on race or xenophobic (as we’ve seen with Trumpian views on immigration), it exhibits a level of violence that we, as a society, begin to accept. We’ve accepted racism as just another thing, a hardship, which the globe will never demolish. The ‘what can we do’ and ‘it’s bigger than us’ mentality in perpetuating racism and white supremacy. It’s the very reason our society remains divided. With our global leaders behaving in similar ways to Trump (take the Tories’ response to Covid; further increasing classism, starving kids, prioritising the economy over health, overwhelming the NHS which boosts classism further) it displays to the rest of us that these injustices are tolerable.
As Biden put it, in response to Trump’s soft language towards the January 6th riots, "With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,"
As long as we have leaders fuelling this divide, they’ll use their language to do so. See through our leaders soft and cushty language, their ‘thoughts and prayers’ and their empty promises. While I think looking at Trump’s language is interesting nonetheless, his words hold power. The way we speak reflects the way we think. As long as we have people with hate in their hearts, privilege to avoid repercussions and deluded supporters affirming their every word sitting in positions of power, pay attention to the way they speak. Language is a tool and when this power falls into the wrong hands, it perpetuates white supremacy and hate. So, keep an ear out.
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