Stoking Fears & Promoting "Otherism"

 

The Republicans presented no major policy initiatives at their recent convention. Maga is running away from Project 2025 and even made a major player step down. So what could they run on? What is their vision for America?

Recently, the New York Times reported the former president (DJT), who has a history of using race to pit groups of Americans against each other, is again using these tactics.

"Attacks on Ms. Harris's racial background have circulated among right-wing figures and Mr. Trump's close allies for years.

In 2019, Donald Trump Jr. shared a social media post from an alt-right personality that falsely claimed Ms. Harris was not Black enough to be discussing the plight of Black Americans during a primary debate. Though Mr. Trump later deleted the post, it spread widely across conservative social media, prompting a wave of accounts to question her background, which was exactly the point of the effort, according to some far-right activists."

 

Appearing last week before a convention for the National Association of Black Journalists, he said:

"I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" Mr. Trump said of Ms. Harris, whose mother was Indian American and whose father is Black.

The moment was shocking, but for those who have followed Mr. Trump's divisive language, it was hardly surprising. The former president has a history of using race to pit groups of Americans against one another, amplifying a strain of racial politics that has risen as a generation of Black politicians has ascended."

 

The Times further noted:

 

"Like many of Mr. Trump's more provocative statements, the comments conveyed several unsettling ideas at once, all of them somewhat open to interpretation: He implied Ms. Harris was deceiving voters and selecting an identity for political gain. He suggested to the predominantly Black audience that she was not one of them — and to Indian Americans listening that she abandoned them, an assertion echoed by the onetime Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday."

DJT used this platform to disrespect the women journalists who attempted to interview him. (He appeared on stage late because he objected to real-time fact-checking during the session.)  At first, he claimed they could not work their equipment, which messed up his schedule, he deflected their questions, calling them hostile, and challenged the concept of DEI. It was him, not the interviewers, who displayed hostility and aggression. Then, as they attempted to ask about the 2025 Project, his staff closed the scheduled hour-long interview after half an hour.

Astute readers will recognize these actions as tactics to disrupt and divide by implying that Harris is walking away from her Indian heritage when it was convenient and embracing it, instead of her black identity, at other times. Of course, this misses the fact that she attended Howard University, an HBUC, and pledged a Black Sorority. Instead, his campaign pointed to the TV appearance she made with actress Mindy Kahling, where they cooked Indian food. This is hardly an example of disowning one's identity!

His campaign in 2020 used identity politics when the Maga World, Fox TV, and others repeatedly referred to caravans of immigrants heading toward our borders. His announcement speech earlier in 2015 mentioned criminals being sent to our borders and committing crimes here. When he was inaugurated, he spoke of the carnage that could envelop our country, which only he could resolve. These tactics employ fear-stoking and imply that criminally inclined immigrants are coming here to rape our daughters, steal our valuables and murder us in our beds-even though most undocumented immigrants walk in the shadows, do not call attention to themselves, often using fake social security numbers, and pay money into a system they will not benefit from.

In the interview, he suggested these immigrants were taking "black jobs", a phrase he used in the earlier debate. When asked how he defined black jobs, he could not provide an example; he just wanted to use it as a wedge. Notably, Simone Biles, after winning gold at the Olympics, stated she loved her black job!

The issue of 'Birtherism', occurred when DJT claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, because his father was Kenyan. With no authority, he demanded a copy of Obama's birth certificate. He again was creating a wedge, causing an instance of "them versus us." Obama first came to national attention when he made his awesome speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention for John Kerry and spoke of common ground between red states and blue states.

He spoke proudly of the diversity of his heritage and his hopes that America could meet its promises. He mentioned moving away from the politics of cynicism toward the politics of hope.

You can find the speech on YouTube here.

No wonder this was so threatening to those promoting the politics of doom. This can be seen in the descriptions and goals mentioned in the Project 2025 900 plus book. The writers of Project 2025 spoke of returning to an earlier America. The introduction to the Mandate for Leadership (*the official name) states in part:

Mandate for Leadership was published in January 1981—the same month Ronald Reagan was sworn into his presidency. By the end of that year, more than 60 percent of its recommendations had become policy—and Reagan was on his way to ending stagflation, reviving American confidence and prosperity, and winning the Cold War. The bad news today is that our political establishment and cultural elite have once again driven America toward decline. The good news is that we know the way out even though the challenges today are not what they were in the 1970s. Conservatives should be confident that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture, revive our economy, and defeat the anti-American Left—at home and abroad. We did it before and will do it again. As Ronald Reagan put it: Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation[.]1 This is the duty history has put before us and the standard by which our generation of conservatives will be judged. And we should not want it any other way. The legacy of the Mandate for Leadership, and indeed of the entire Reagan Revolution, is that if conservatives want to save the country, we need a bold and courageous plan. This book is the first step in that plan.

THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE.

PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.

PROMISE #2: DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND RETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

PROMISE #3: DEFEND OUR NATION'S SOVEREIGNTY, BORDERS, AND BOUNTY AGAINST GLOBAL THREATS.

PROMISE #4 SECURE OUR GOD-GIVEN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO ENJOY "THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY."

What this document ignores in practice is that this country is no longer home to the mostly agrarian communities of the 20th Century. In 1950, the US population was over 151 million people; in 1980, that number rose to over 226 million. Today we have over 336 million Americans. Approximately 58% of the population is White, with 19% Hispanic or Latino, 12% are Black and 5% are Asian. Other groups make up a small additional percentage.

The Internet age moves quickly, societal expectations are more complex, and our world is more conflicted. Demographics have changed over these 50 years. 38 million Americans identify as mixed-race or multi-racial. So an insult thrown at Kamala Harris reverberates against millions of our friends, neighbors, and voters.

Religiosity also changed over the decades, with fewer Americans adhering to the tenets of organized religion and Sunday services. What Fox TV claimed was a War on Christmas or Christians was mostly a decrease in membership in organized and evangelical religions. Those who claim Christian Nationalism should be the norm, should look at Maryland where there are significant populations of Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus, to mention only a few other faiths. We can easily find nearby Buddhist Temples with prayer flags flying and mosques with attached minarets.

I mentioned “Othering” in my title. It is also a way of creating wedges. A recent article in Population Health noted that Othering should be considered a health inequity. (Pub Med-2022 Dec 20 # 101286.) It describes othering as a powerful process that goes beyond the concept of discrimination or categorization. It posits that it must be considered in a psycho-social context. Stereotyping, prejudice, or stigmatization, although used as synonyms, do not convey the same emphasis. Othering is a conscious construct using ideas that need to be deconstructed, rather than simply leveraged, to allow access to power or to exclude.

For example, immigrants fleeing tyranny, and who are at risk, can be charged with societal othering, which makes them the risk. Such emphasis on the differences in culture and languages further marginalizes their fragile identities. This concept applies to any person or group which is outside the majority norm. It benefits those who wish to promote an “us vs. them” life philosophy and can be detrimental to the mental health of those who are trying to integrate or assimilate. This shows the cruelty of those who promote such discrimination. Phrases such as they are not like us or I cannot pronounce your name, so I will just call you Joe. are insulting and demeaning.

Political pundits predict that if the election seems more competitive, attacks from the Maga world will increase. They were unprepared for a Kamala Harris campaign. Expect more fear- mongering, increasingly wild predictions, personal attacks, and attempts to marginalize voters. Election boards are already scrubbing the voter rolls, looking for duplicates or perhaps those with exotic names. Do you know how many Indians with the last name of Patel are in this country? Do you think they might survive a purge? (Answer: there are 500,000 Indians of that name outside India with approximately 150,000 people named Patel living in the US.) How many other ethnic names might eventually be challenged?

Today DJT backed out of his scheduled ABC debate on September 10^th and demanded that Harris appear on a Fox TV debate which would have friendly, to him, moderators and a friendly TV audience, instead of the stark studio seen in the first debate which both sides agreed upon earlier. Harris indicated she would appear for the already scheduled event and consider any additional scenarios after that. Do you suppose he is running scared?

Tomorrow Kamala Harris is going to name her vice president selection. The word on the street is that the contest is down to Governors Tim Waltz of Minnesota and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. While I favor Walz, I can live with Shapiro because I do not want dissension among Democrats. Support her choice, whomever it is! As the saying goes, we have bigger fish to fry! We have to get out there and win this election. The alternative is unacceptable.

Til next week – Peace!