Trump Administration: the New Nazi Regime
The rise of whiteness through the discrimination of minority groups
The United States of America has been known as the country of immigrants ever since it was created. It has been the immigrant community that has allowed for this country to flourish the way it has. Now, the major question is “what makes America great?” The real answer is in the diversity that is found in the minority groups that create the forward-moving force of the country. Minority groups like Blacks, Latinos, LGBT, Asians, and women, to name a few, put forward an effort to keep this country moving in the right direction. However, according to Donald Trump, America is lacking beauty and he wants to give it back.
His campaigning slogan “Make America Great Again” caught the attention of mostly white Christian males that make up the working class. Identity politics played a major role in the campaign of President Trump as it was the white working class that favored him. So why did identity politics worked for Trump in getting support? Well, because this group felt that whiteness was no longer playing on their side when Obama was president. According to Sara Ahmed in A phenomenology of whiteness, whiteness leads bodies into directions that have an effect in what they ‘can do’ and how they ‘take up’ space. White people have always been the majority group and with their whiteness they have gained privilege; a privilege they felt threaten during the Obama administration but that could be gain back in the Trump administration.
It is identity politics and whiteness that are driving America to where it is heading now, to where Trump supporters want it to be headed. This beautiful America Trump speaks about is an America were white supremacy is at its maximum and there is no diversity. Diversity is not only referring to race but also to gender, class, and even religion (other than Christianity). Trump supporters want to take up the space that “belongs to them,” granted through whiteness, and they are doing it through discrimination.
One of the things that Obama did during his presidency was to allow for the increase in rights for many minority groups. One of this cases was when he legalized same-sex marriage. This outraged many white Christians that now support Trump. Trump, using identity politics, placed himself as a man with Christian beliefs, beliefs that he said to protect during his presidency. Beliefs that he seems to protect as he signed a religious order which previously was to grant the right to discriminate, but as the order arouse controversy the license to discrimination was dropped; however, still allowing for religious organizations to denied services that do not comply with their beliefs. This religious order pleased anti-LGBT and anti-choice people as “the Trump administration recognizes and understands the anti-faith policies of the previous administration and will be issuing guidance government-wide ensuring religious beliefs and actions are respected”. Just like this executive order, there are many others that attack anything that is not white and does not comply to whiteness like it was with the Muslim Ban and many other anti-immigrant orders.
While whiteness flourishes in America now, there is an attack on diversity. Diversity comes from the different groups, other than white, that make up the population in the United States without leaving out sex, gender, class, and religion. It is the attack on diversity that presents the Trump administration as the new Nazi regime and it is not making America beautiful again but rather extremely white and racist.
So why has the identity politics used by Trump not worked? According to Jennifer Nash, in re-thinking intersectionality, Crenshaw argues that identity politics becomes an issue because it omits many of the differences within one group and that such issue can be amended through intersectionality because those differences would be taken into account. Through the orders that Trump has passed and through many discriminatory acts that have been performed it is easy to see that what Crenshaw argues the issue to identity politics is is true. We see how Trump appeals to whites but within that group there is differences in religion and class, to name a few. And, with his many orders that he is passing, he may grant advantage to some and disadvantage to others within that same group. This is why intersectionality is the answer to ending this new Nazi regime. It is not only affecting groups that do not conform to the white Christian views but also in the long run it will affect Trump supporters if the differences within that group are continued to be ignored.
So really America cannot be beautiful and great if we forget that what makes it beautiful and great is the diversity that makes it up; the different groups, including whites, and the differences within those groups. Perhaps, some day whiteness will not seek for its privilege but it will learn to share its privilege with the groups that are truly oppressed. Perhaps, some day we will all learn to respect our differences not as be colorblind but to understand that different colors, shapes, and sizes add to the beauty of diversity.
