by NoahThe sooner we recognize that these red Republican MAGA hats like the one being worn by the critter above are the new white KKK hood, the better. The rodent may be cute, but there is nothing cute about today's Republicans.Trump has an idiot savant's gift for marketing and he knew from the time he glided down his Trump Tower escalator to launch his campaign on a platform of xenophobia and racism that he couldn't be so overt as to wear the pointy white hood that he probably inherited from his father. No, instead he needed a new symbol for the same old racist attitudes, but he needed one that could be worn out in the open. Hence, the MAGA hat, the hat that has become an essential part of any Republican wardrobe.For the hat, Trump even pointedly chose a slogan that has echoes of the Klan slogans of the 1920's, the Klan's peak years when tens of thousand of Klan members marched through the streets of Washington. The slogan Trump chose has even word for word echoes at that. To drive his sick bigotry essence home, he tied it to an even more infamous and popular KKK slogan, "America First!" In a May 2016 tweet, he said:
In trade, military and everything else, it will be AMERICA FIRST! This will quickly lead to our ultimate goal: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Trump isn't the first politician of either party to use either slogan. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton occasionally uttered the phrase "Make America Great Again" in speeches, but neither man used "Make America Great Again" as a slogan or buzz phrase so heavily, so effectively, or with such deliberate anti-immigrant, white supremacy meaning. Trump, in fact, trademarked "Male America Great Again" in 2012. In 2008, Clinton hypocritically, yet correctly, pointed out-
If you're a white southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?
The choice of the word 'Again' dredges up feelings of grievance and longing for a world long gone. The Teabagger political element is often heard saying they want "their country" back, often when addressing the topics of immigration or race, or even just tangentially related to them.The choice of the word 'Great' is also key when it comes to reaching Trump's targeted demographic, regardless of where they live. Today's Confederates live in every state as we continue to fight the Civil War. It's just that now the Civil War is, ironically, a war without borders. 'Great' is vague enough that it means whatever the beholder wants it to mean, which is usually, when it comes to Republicans, 'white' of course. "Great" can pointedly ignore many of those who think America has been great for them. Such people have already decided their voting preferences one way of the other. But, 'Great' also eliminates those who, have, in their personal experience, felt the sting of being ostracized through bigotry and kept from the opportunities and benefits of living in America. They know that a Trump-style America not only dashes what dreams of 'Great' they may still have, they know it will never hold even a glimmer of a dream of 'Great' for them. Trump isn't really trying to reach them either. He is only interested in manipulating those with specific grievances; grievances embraced by those looking to place blame for their misfortunes on "others" and those who have a bigoted axe to grind about them.Tonight's meme tells a story. If you do think that mice or rats might be cute, think again. They are great carriers of disease, especially if they're wearing that little red republican hat. The FOX "News" logo? Think of it as the new national flag of Confederacy. The last one, from from 1863, featured what most people consider to be the Confederate flag (but is actually the Confederacy's battle flag) set against a field of symbolic solid white. See below. The flag's designer, Savannah newspaperman William Tappan Thompson, pushing and promoting his design, proudly declared-
As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race: a white flag would thus be emblematic of our cause.
In Thompson's day, it was a Republican president who freed the slaves. Most of the Democrats, at least those known as Dixiecrats, were the racist bad guys for the next 100 years, until John Kennedy started speaking out against racial discrimination in 1960 and Nixon put together his infamous "southern strategy" in 1968. I'm sure that would confuse William Tappan Thompson but I have no doubt that he would love Donald Trump and today's Republican Party.Happy Martin Luther King Day, to all.
