Image courtesy Angela Ferrao (www.facebook.com/Ferraodesigns)
I keep hearing that celebrities are pledging to flee the US if Donald
Trump moves into the Oval Office. Surely the privileged aren’t worried that
they’ll be oppressed under a President Trump! Perhaps it is that they want to
dissociate from this vile character, even though he epitomizes what the US
stands for—capitalism, greed, privilege, white supremacy, patriarchy, individualism,
etc. Other wealthy and famous people are part of the same club, whether they
want to admit it or not. The hysteria over the potential of Donald Trump
becoming the leader of the Republican Party and subsequently the next President
of the United States frankly leaves me as frustrated as the possibility of this
actually happening.
My news feed on social media keeps placing the words “Trump” and “fascist”/“fascism”
in the same sentence. I’ve even read comparisons between the Donald and Mussolini.
This is a reminder of how isolated the Americans (and Canadians) are. You know,
there are actual fascists running countries in other parts of the world. In
fact, the US and other Western countries are doing business with most of them.
Where is your outrage? Right, there are different standards for what’s normal
and acceptable in the Global South—you know, those places that collectively
house the majority of the world’s population. At the most, Trump would be
fascist-lite; no matter how totalitarian he might want to be, the governance
system wouldn’t give him so much authority. How many bills have the Republicans
blocked since Obama became president?
Yes, Trump is a giant douchebag, and yes, his policies are racist, but
how unique does that sound, really? I shared a meme on my Facebook page
yesterday that reads, “White privilege is needing this guy [Donald Trump] to
make you realize how racist America is, when you could have just listened to
people of color years ago.” To me, that pretty much sums it up.
I’m reminded of what happened last January after that man in Vancouver pepper
sprayed families attending a welcome party for Syrian refugees hosted by the
Muslim Association of Canada. Immediately, Facebook was a-flutter with
well-meaning Canadians declaring, “This guy doesn’t represent us!” Even our Prime
Minister chimed in to say, “This isn't who
we are—and doesn’t reflect the warm welcome Canadians have offered.” Okay, the
second part is right: it didn’t reflect the warm welcome of the Canadians who
supported the resettlement of Syrian refugees. But I seem to recall a lot of
negativity prior to this. Syrians—especially Sunni Muslim Syrians—were commonly
equated with terrorists. The previous government had faced accusations of
accepting only Syrian Christians, which was alleged to explain why only 1,300 Syrian
refugees had reached Canada as of March 2015. Then Immigration Minister Chris Alexander was quoted as saying, “We will prioritize persecuted ethnic and
religious minorities, those at demonstrated risk, and we will make no apologies
for that.” Many Canadians guessed at who those persecuted minorities were.
After all, this was then Defence Minister Jason Kenney’s Twitter handle for a
long time:
That Arabic letter became the symbol of persecuted
Christians in Iraq.
I also remember the Canadian news outlets conducting polls asking if
the public agreed with the Liberal government’s plan to accept 25,000 Syrian
refugees, and the response was always mostly unfavourable. One such poll
had a negative response of 60%. So, no, Canada wasn’t all warm and fuzzy about
Syrian refugees. But our PM would have us believe the pepper sprayer was some anti-Canadian
monster that came out of nowhere. This is what we always do: We distance
ourselves from the monsters to make ourselves feel better, and that ends the
discussion, so we never have to actually address racism at all. This is what
the Americans are doing with Trump now.
Donald Trump is a product of his society. Therefore, if he is elected,
he is precisely the leader the Americans deserve, and they should stay
put if they benefit from the same system that Trump
represents. Perhaps this bizarre theatrical production of the GOP nomination
race is actually Trump holding a mirror to (white) America. If the protected
are afraid, imagine what marginalized Americans are feeling. They’re the ones
whom capitalism and right-wing ideology hurt the most.
