Recently Trump showed up for a campaign rally in what could be called an economically-depressed rural part of Wisconsin, the kind of place where white grievance types cluster and don’t wonder why after four years their neck of the woods isn’t doing all that great in Trumpworld. Trump encourages these people to blame minorities and the “liberal” crying towel types for their problems, and not him and the Republicans who have dominated state government for the past decade or so, even though there are damn few minorities in sight. I grew up in Wisconsin, and believe me, outside the urban areas in the southeast corner of the state, it is practically lily-white. That includes the place Trump visited, Mosinee, a rural town of 4,000 right down the street from Stevens Point, which is not far from Eau Claire where I spent one summer of my youth. This part of Wisconsin is like most of the rest, very “Aryan-Nordic” in its “heritage” and outlook—and “look.” If you are a minority, it’s not a place you’ll feel particularly comfortable being in, let alone “living” in.
The Guardian reported that residents of the area were not particularly concerned about what Trump has not done for them, but were fans of his propaganda. “’Trump, he’s for us, he’s for our rights,’ said Lori Cates, 52, of nearby Stevens Point. ‘Too many of the good things he’s done for our economy are overlooked. Biden, Kamala, the socialist left, they want to take our guns away. For too long I didn’t pay attention. Not anymore.’” Naturally, for an economically-depressed paper mill town like Mosinee, it simply does not matter that Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” hasn’t quite reached their boondock yet—he came, he saw, he conquered. He “cared.” Like hell this born billionaire from a different universe “cares.” He just wants their vote because he likes being a dictator who can enrich his friends and crush those who are “unfriendly,” like his best bud Vladimir Putin.
The “Pandumbic” is also raging in the area. One of the fastest growing COVID-19 rates in the country is in Stevens Point and other places in Wisconsin, but according to Cates “I think a lot of it is made up. It’s a ploy to take away from (Trump’s) success.” Of course at this point in his presidency what his “successes” are is not quite clear, unless it is making the rich richer and if bringing down legal immigration from “shithole” countries down to near zero is what turns them on. About the biggest “business” in town is selling Trump paraphilia; one such “business owner,” Jennifer Warner, admitted that she was unfortunately sold out of whiskey glasses embalmed with “Fuck Your Feelings.” Well, they know where they can stick that “feeling.”
What Trump has done was to open that vile Pandora’s Box that should never have been opened, It was that box that Ronald Reagan had taken out of storage, that Newt Gingrich had tried to pry open, that Bob Dole, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney had tried to keep sealed for their own reputation’s sake. Let us not be unmindful of the fact that Trump never thought that he would be elected in the first place, and he was just mouthing off because he just didn’t care what other people thought. It was only after the election that we discovered that there were a lot more voters out there who just as hateful and unbalanced as Trump was than we feared.
Dole said it best during the 1996 Republican National Convention, in which he told his audience that the question of immigration was broader than the far-right’s focus on illegal immigration to rationalize racism. “A family from Mexico arrives this morning legally has as much right to the American Dream as the direct descents of the Founding Fathers.” Obviously something that would enrage Trump’s base, and Stephen Miller who doesn’t want them here at all under any circumstances. He went on “The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view.” Of course we are not sure what that could mean now; I suppose there is a broad spectrum of “conservatism,” but we would be hard-pressed to identify anyone who is actually even a “centrist” these days in the Republican Party—but then again, these days the “traditional” conservative is so rare that they almost seem “liberal” in comparison to the greater part of the party.
Dole wasn’t finished; he called out those of extreme right and white nationalist views, informing them that they had no place in his Republican Party: “But if there's anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.” Admittedly Dole was very likely courting minority voters who may have been disillusioned with Bill Clinton’s “deals” with the far-right elements of Congress that hurt them, although it would be to no avail as many extreme-right voters likely stayed home rather than vote for him.
Dole went on to remind people of the legacy of Lincoln and the cost in blood to keep this country one: “The notion that we are and should be one people rather than ‘peoples’ of the United States seems so self-evident and obvious that it's hard for me to imagine that I must defend it. When I was growing up in Russell, Kansas, it was clear to me that my pride and my home were in America, not in any faction, and not in any division. In this I was heeding, even as I do unto this day, Washington's eloquent rejection of factionalism. I was honoring, even as I do unto this day, Lincoln's word, his life and his sacrifice. The principle of unity has been with us in all our successes.”
Speaking of his service in World War II, “The war was fought just a generation after America's greatest and most intense period of immigration. And yet when the blood of the sons of immigrants and the grandsons of slaves fell on foreign fields, it was American blood. In it you could not read the ethnic particulars of the soldier who died next to you. He was an American.” In Trumpworld, race and ethnicity is everything, it is the very lifeblood of his being and his base. There are "real" Americans, and the "others." Trump always claims he isn’t a racist, but like all those on the extreme right he will not “reject” those few minorities who express dislike for those they do not wish to be “lumped in” with, usually for “cultural” reasons—and for Trump’s base there are “fortunately” so few of them that they do not “threaten” white hegemony.
Dole wondered how “having learned this lesson, I wonder how we could have unlearned it. Is the principle of unity, so hard-fought and at the cost of so many lives, having been contested again and again in our history, and at such a terrible price, to be casually abandoned to the urge to divide?” For the past four years, that is exactly what has been done. Trump and his familiars have been extraordinarily “casual” about their contempt for the Constitution and for the tenets that this nation of immigrants (albeit stolen from its original inhabitants) is founded on.
What Trump has done is to unleash from the box the kind of “voter” who normally would not have been given “voice,” because that voice was considered too extreme, too racist, too conspiratorially-minded, too paranoid, too scapegoating, too disbelieving of the facts staring them right in their faces—people who don’t even know what “socialist”—let alone “democracy”— means. These are the people who say that someone is “finally” listening to them. They are the ones who say they are “happy” that someone is bringing the darkest darkness of this country’s psyche into the “light,” and they no longer feel like pariahs. This is what Trump has done “for” them. This is what he has done to this country.
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