Dispatch #156 White Lesbian Age 72 Considers Ascendency Again of White Supremacy, Patriarchal Misogyny, White Christian Nationalism, Xenophobia – the Decline of the America
- Kathleen A. Maloy
- Dec 12, 2024
- 6 min read
December 12th 2024 1421 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President
39 Days White Supremacist Misogynist Christian Nationalist Regime Begins
901 Days Since SCOTUS Ruled American Women Don’t Have Human Rights
432 Days Since Israel Began Genocidal Assault on Palestinians in Gaza
Faithful dispatches readers may remember how I titled my dispatches when I began writing and posting more than 8 years ago – White Lesbian Age 72 Considers Ascendancy of White Supremacy and Misogyny. I posted a running total for number of days “post-ascendancy of white supremacy and misogyny.” Or as nicknamed by a friend, PAWSM dispatches. And yeah, I was so outraged that I could hardly see straight for months.
In this moment, I admit feeling less devastated than 8 years ago when it seemed impossible that a narcissistic self-styled business tycoon lacking a single qualification, with serial bankruptcies to his credit and evident qualities of racism and misogyny, whose inane verbosity was liberally packed with lies and fantastic fabrications, and whose fame derived largely from a TV show could be elected President – even accounting for Hillary Clinton’s gender/vagina problem.
The return of Trump and his quislings reveals the corrupt moral core of America and confirms that the ubiquitous paeans to American exceptionalism and its heralded democracy are little more than propaganda. For 8 years, Trump has been running on white grievance, anti-black racism, patriarchal hierarchy (aka misogyny) and xenophobia (aka non-white racism). This rancid stew thrives in an America founded by landed white men who supported slavery, excluded women, carried out genocide of indigenous peoples to steal their land, and promoted the hostility toward and exploitation of immigrants.
In retrospect, Harris faced an insurmountable task necessary to win the election -- to dislodge and replace these toxic narratives in 100 days. The Democrats had no credible response to the struggles facing Americans in post-industrial 21st century global capitalism.
The post-election analyses by mainstream/legacy media and the pundit class are superficial and hackneyed, employing language that obfuscates and distracts. Saving democracy held little sway to the majority of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck on minimum wage, can’t find housing, and are one $500 emergency away from disaster. Blaming inflation and price-gouging trivialized the enormity of these daily struggles. Trump unapologetically pandered to racism to sell mass deportations as the palliative for deep economic angst plaguing a majority of Americans.
The New York Review of Books Online Symposium on Return of Trump 11.15.24
Susan Neiman comments:
Here’s what is certain: The Economist’s October claim that the American economy is the envy of the world is not true for the half of Americans who would be threatened by an unexpected $400 bill. Without the language to specify their anxiety, voters—and the journalists who quote them—name inflation. But the fear and pain of inflation are tied to a system in which no structures exist to prevent homelessness or illness if you are faced with an unplanned expense. Few Americans can imagine such structures, which is why talk of economic uncertainty is confined to talk of inflation or wages. Yet in other wealthy countries, health care, housing, sick leave, parental leave, and education are considered social rights—matters of justice. All were codified in the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, after two years of deliberation chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Still, Americans consider them matters of luck.
Theodor Adorno wrote that fascism is always an option within liberal capitalist societies, where people sense that reality is at odds with official discourse but have no tools to explain the gap except eliminating the Other. Even Democrats find it easier to focus on restricting immigration than to imagine structural social change.
America’s plight is peculiarly irrational because we have the means but not the vocabulary to fix it. Trump voters were drawn to a man who expressed the diffuse but palpable rage you encounter when returning to the United States after a sojourn elsewhere. It burbles in airports and supermarkets across genders and demographics. And as Hannah Arendt wrote in On Violence, rage is not an automatic reaction to misery and suffering: “Only where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not does rage arise. Only when our sense of justice is offended do we react with rage.” www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/15/the-return-of-trump-vi/
Democrats Deserted Working Poor: Bishop William Barber on Healthcare, Living Wages, Voting Rights | Democracy Now! | November 8 2024. www.democracynow.org/2024/11/8/william_barber_trump_economic_policy_project2025
Democrats Abandoned the Working Class: Robin D.G. Kelley on Trump’s Win & Need for Class Solidarity | Democracy Now! | November 7,2024. www.democracynow.org/2024/11/7/robin_dg_kelley
The New York Review of Books Online Symposium on Return of Trump 11.09.24
Rozina Ali comments:
In attempts to draw a contrast with Donald Trump, Harris reminded voters that “democracy is on the line”—an argument that fell flat to significant numbers of Muslims and Arabs. As Democratic leaders claimed that only their party could preserve the international rules-based order, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bulldozed over every red line that President Joe Biden put before him. As Democratic leaders touted decency, Biden questioned the number of dead Gazans and sent more weapons to Israel. As Democratic leaders warned Americans that a vote for Trump was a vote for fascism, antiwar protesters were arrested or suspended from colleges and threatened with being blacklisted from jobs.
The Biden administration had rolled back aspects of its progressive domestic agenda—temporary cash relief ended, as did the expanded child tax credit, while millions lost access to Medicaid—but it continued funding wars abroad. Since October 7, 2023, the US has spent over $22 billion on military aid to Israel. The Pentagon budget for 2024 is an astonishing $953 billion—higher than its annual average spending during World War II, adjusted for inflation. At the same time, the US is breaking other historical records: we have the largest-ever homeless population, the most household debt, the widest gap in spending between the poorest and richest consumers (in part because food costs have risen). https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/09/the-return-of-trump-ii/
“The Confederacy Won”: Why Donald Trump’s Reelection Is a Win for White Supremacy, Xenophobia & Hate | Democracy Now! | November 6, 2024.
The New York Review of Books Online Symposium on Return of Trump 11.13.24
Thomas Powers comments:
Rather than listing a score of reasons why Trump won, I would start with one: the Republican strategy beginning fifty years ago to replace the Democratic Party in the eleven states of the old Confederacy. Their success is obvious in the map of the 2024 presidential election, two swathes of red states marking the two great divisions in American history and politics—the North–South separation of slave and free states, and the inland corridor of farmers facing bankers and cultural arbiters on the two coasts. When the count is complete this year the likely result will be eighteen blue states versus thirty-two red states.
With every national election the right–left, red–blue division in American political argument confirms the success of the Old South in taking over the Republican Party. Positions on all the big issues reflect the Old South agenda of single-party rule, white and male supremacy, social and moral issues as determined by evangelical Protestant churches, a big military plus the Second Amendment. Republican presidential candidates all make their peace with those. www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/13/the-return-of-trump-v/
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Democrats Demobilized Their Base. A Movement Is Now Needed to Oppose Trump | Democracy Now! | November 6, 2024
The New York Review of Books Online Symposium on Return of Trump 11.13.24
Coco Fusco comments:
Trump may be unhinged, but his campaign managers are ruthless and shrewd. His team devised a frighteningly effective media blitz that relied on xenophobic messaging. Between January and September of this year, the Republican and Democratic parties and PACS spent more than $389 million on immigration ads. Democrats accounted for only 17 percent of that sum; 83 percent of it, according to the Immigration Hub, “was spent on anti-immigrant TV ads by the GOP and right-wing groups.” Between September and November, Republican candidates, PACs, and others spent $243 million on 450 anti-immigrant TV ads that aired mostly in battleground states with small immigrant populations. In the last two months alone, right-wing anti-immigrant ads aired over 250,000 times in battleground states and were viewed over 6.5 billion times.
In total, the Republicans produced over seven hundred immigration-related ads while the Democrats made less than fifty. Republican ads claimed that American cities were being flooded with criminals. Migrants were described as illegals, aliens, invaders, traffickers, rapists, and murderers. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, almost a fifth of the ads incorporated stock footage as well as outdated images and videos, some dating back to Trump’s first presidency. The inaccuracies didn’t matter. This large-scale effort to shape public opinion galvanized support for mass deportation. www.nybooks.com/online/2024/11/13/the-return-of-trump-v/
“This Is a Collapse of the Democratic Party”: Ralph Nader on Roots of Trump’s Win Over Harris | Democracy Now! | November 6, 2024. www.democracynow.org/2024/11/6/ralph_nader_on_trumps_win
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