The Hero of White Supremacy

“Let’s condemn with one voice racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” Donald Trump recently declared, condemning one of the constant and countless massacres that have increased since he returned to power in the United States, and whose perpetrators generally leave messages against immigrants and Hispanics.

But the “disgust and outrage” of the American president moves no one in the United States, where the policy of arming oneself to the teeth flows like a tidal wave, under the false pretext that “it’s mental illness that pulls the trigger, not the guns,” in a clear defense of possessing the deadly instrument.

Of course, no one in their right mind would believe Trump's initial words, whose policy of reaching out to "oppressed races" only occurs during imminent elections, while he remains the idol of those supremacists who want to prevent the "adulteration of white blood," as well as of leaders of the powerful Ku Klux Klan, who, "to save face," claim to be acting on a personal level, and not on behalf of an organization celebrating its anniversary these days, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Black people, whom they hanged or burned, or both.

Now, with absolute power, removing and placing pawns in key positions, he labels immigrants as criminals, diverting attention from the very real threat posed by white supremacists and far-right violence.

Donald Trump has once again ridden the xenophobic political tiger all the way to the White House, convincing Americans that immigrants in this country are an existential threat to the nation's security and well-being.

“This is a problem that infects our entire society,” says Mike German, a former FBI agent who spent years working undercover to expose far-right and white supremacist groups operating within law enforcement. “It’s not an issue that comes up every now and then. It’s a constant problem.”

On the other hand, violence and terrorism perpetrated by followers of white supremacist and far-right ideologies have steadily increased over the past decade, surpassing the threats posed by Islamist extremists and other ideologically motivated groups, endangering public safety and even the foundations of our sham democracy.

And, German says, the pervasiveness of white supremacist and far-right ideologies within local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies—including the agency he once worked for—makes this threat even more pernicious.

Despite Trump's continued attacks on immigrants as criminals, rapists, and thieves (descriptions used to justify his campaign of mass deportations), data shows that, as a group, immigrants, legal or not, commit far fewer crimes than U.S.-born citizens and, in fact, may have an overall mitigating effect on crime.

Recently, the red-faced figure insulted Somali immigrants and the entire African nation, calling them "trash," as did his mouthpiece, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, in reporting on "his president's" decision not to attend the G-20 meeting held in South Africa, due to the Pretoria government's rejection of the U.S. president's racist policies.

"...We're going down the wrong path if we keep bringing trash into our country. Ilhan Omar—the Democratic congresswoman of Somali origin—is trash. She's trash. Her friends are trash. These are people who work. These are people who say, 'Let's go, let's go.'" Let's make this place a great place.” These are people who do nothing but complain. They complain, and where they came from, they got nothing. You know, they came from paradise and said, 'This isn't paradise.' But when they come from hell and complain and do nothing but complain, we don't want them in our country. Let them go.”

Rubio also emphasized the expulsion of the South African ambassador to the United States, Embrahim Rasool, for considering that Donald Trump is the leader of the global supremacist movement.

“What Donald Trump is launching is an attack against those in power, by mobilizing supremacism against them, both within and outside the country. In this sense, we see the supremacist attack against those in power in American national politics, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, as a response not only to a supremacist instinct, but also to very clear data showing major demographic changes in the U.S., where the American electorate is projected to be 48% white,” Ambassador Rasool stated.

NO SURPRISE

The clearest example of the supremacist threat is the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020.

Many people were surprised to see so many police officers involved, as well as elected officials and representatives, a sign of how widespread these ideas have become within agencies and offices ostensibly tasked with protecting the public.

Even Trump could have fallen victim to his own permissiveness when the young man who attempted to assassinate him expressed the same antisemitic and anti-immigrant rhetoric promoted by the administration.

But Trump's policies are the same whether they target masses of immigrants or individuals who are a nuisance to his administration.

Thus, two Black men who were fired by President Donald Trump from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the National Land Transportation Board (STB) accused the federal administration of discrimination against them as part of a pattern of removing Black officials across the government.

Robert Primus at the STB and Alvin Brown at the NTSB were the only Black members of the regulatory agencies' oversight boards, which are officially independent, when they were dismissed this year. Both had already filed lawsuits challenging their dismissals, arguing that the White House lacked just cause, as required by law. Democracy Forward filed the new discrimination lawsuits on behalf of both men.

“When you look at who has been removed without cause and who has remained in their position, the pattern is impossible to ignore: Black commissioners across the federal government have been summarily dismissed,” said Brown, who was vice chairman of the NTSB. “My abrupt removal was illegal and discriminatory.”

The White House said Trump had the legal right to fire Primus and Brown and that performance, not bias, was the basis for those decisions. The administration has not yet filed a formal response to Primus’s lawsuit, but it asked a judge to dismiss Brown’s suit, arguing that the legal protection that board members can only be fired for cause is unconstitutional and that the president should be able to choose his team at each executive agency.

When Brown was fired, experts said they did not recall anyone ever being fired from the NTSB, which is tasked with investigating disasters across all modes of transportation to determine their causes and make recommendations to prevent similar tragedies from happening again. The NTSB is currently investigating nearly 1,250 cases, including the collision of a passenger plane and a military helicopter over Washington, D.C., in January, which killed 67 people.

Primus was removed from the STB shortly after Union Pacific proposed buying Norfolk Southern for $85 billion, a massive deal that the five-member board will evaluate in the next year or two. He was the only STB member who opposed Canadian Pacific's acquisition of Kansas City Southern in 2023 because he was concerned about the impact on competition. Trump has said he thinks the Union Pacific deal sounds good, so Primus's dismissal was convenient for him.

Trump has fired several board members at various agencies that are supposed to be independent, including the Federal Reserve, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In short, he continues to do as he pleases in his racist purge policy.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff