If I wanted to build the Republican base, I would do the right things for the right reasons, and would use inclusive language while doing it, so that my message of freedom and opportunity can resonate with as many people as possible. In the case of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule put in place by Obama, and now rescinded by Trump, I might have said something like:
“This executive order represented the single biggest federal overreach in our nation’s history, and it was enacted without a single vote, and without even input from Congress. President Obama wanted to nationalize every city, town, village, and neighborhood, in the country, throwing out all local zoning laws, and demanding that every city, town, village, and neighborhood, meet federal quotas until they all look alike. Now, being inclusive should be, and is, a goal for every American, but the government has no role in telling people where they can or cannot live. This order would have caused local governments to do whatever was needed, including the use of eminent domain when necessary, to forcibly relocate people, under the penalty of losing federal funding. We will continue to enforce inclusive housing laws across the country, but we are not going to reintroduce redlining, which is what this order did. Redlining is evil, and I will not see it return.”
Instead, Trump struck down that awful order, and then made a carefully crafted speech he knew would sound to Democrats like, “I’m going to keep our suburbs white,” without actually saying that.
Republicans can, and will, defend Trump’s statements, since he did not actually say anything wrong, but we all know that saying he was going to ‘keep your suburbs beautiful’ would make the left, and the mainstream media, explode. What does ‘beautiful’ mean? Well – it means whatever the listener wants it to mean, and that is exactly what Trump wanted.
Now the story is about what Trump said, rather than what the details of the order he struck down were.
If Trump wins the election, many will say he expertly trolled the left to control the narrative, but there is another possibility.
If I wanted to destroy the Republican Party, and by destroy, I mean burn it to the ground and then spread the ashes until there was nothing left, I would do all the right things (ensuring that Republicans, who are policy minded, stay with me) while simultaneously saying all the wrong things. The result of that would be to make a growing number of people associate Republican policies with racism.
Obama really did reinstate redlining. The government really was poised to take over the zoning of every city, town, village, and neighborhood in the country, with the stated goal of making them all the same. The government really was going to move people – forcibly if necessary – to make that happen. Obama was going to use HUD funding as a stick, such that any city that does not meet its quotas would lose all HUD funding. Joe Biden has promised to reinstate this forced relocation, but to tie in ALL federal funding, such that no city, town, or village can afford not to comply.
Obama’s legacy, if he has one (which November will decide), will be that he moved the racial discussion from one centered on inclusivity, to one centered on forced diversity.
Inclusivity means that people have the right to associate freely, without regard to race, religion, gender, or other factors. Anyone can buy any house they can afford, and no laws exist to try to control where people live or work. Under inclusivity, there are no artificial barriers preventing advancement for anyone. Racism in our country was dying a slow death back when inclusivity was still the goal.
Did we ever get to full inclusivity? No. We got reasonably close, and we were still making progress, but America still had some racism, and though the effects of racism were no longer enough to be statistically significant in any measurable way, there no doubt were localized impacts.
Once Obama was elected, the goal changed to forced diversity.
Forced diversity separates people by race, categorizing them, counting them, building quotas, and making things like skill and experience secondary to things like race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.. Forced diversity places us all into identity group boxes, and then controls our lives accordingly. Forced diversity Balkanizes the public and encourages racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of prejudice. How? By encouraging the so-called oppressed to hate the so-called oppressors, which will also very predictably cause a backlash.
Forced diversity grows groups like Black Lives Matter, which many Americans think is a good thing. Forced diversity also grows the KKK, and I don’t think anyone wants that. If there were one thing I wish could get those on the other side of the political aisle to understand, it is that racism breeds racism. You cannot replace racism with ‘better’ racism. Black Lives Matter and the KKK are like the ying and the yang: if you want to get rid of one, you have to get rid of the other. In other words, the ONLY way to defeat racism is to stop separating people into groups!
As Martin Luther King Jr. put it, we should judge people based on the content of their character, and not the color of their skin. In other words, either ALL lives matter, or no lives matter.
Trump could have used language championing inclusivity. He could have denounced forced diversity as a tyrannical Balkanization of the public, which is exactly what it is.
Instead, Trump said what he knew every media house in the country would read as “I will keep your suburbs white.”
So you tell me… Is Trump really trying to win a second term as a Republican President, or has he exposed the jugular of the Republican Party, and of conservatism in general, and slit our collective throats?
I asked the same question in 2016.
Trump’s popularity would soar if he simply communicated well. Instead, he is a careful and calculating communicator, but not an effective one.
