TRUMP TWEETS FOOTBALL WHILE AMERICA BURNS

In the teeth of provoking North Korea into a nuclear war, ignored human hurricane catastrophes, especially in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, another defeat on the most cynical attempt at Obamacare repeal, his daughter, son in law and several advisors having committed the same e mail crimes as “crooked Hillary” and the Mueller investigation relentlessly marching on, Trump focussed his attention on bringing down the TV ratings and attendances of the National Football League, (NFL). His vehicles were a partisan diatribe at a Trump supporter jamboree and a twenty tweet storm. In this endeavor he has turned, what was, rightly or wrongly, regarded as a forgettable protest event into a major cause celebre. 

Taking on sport the way he has The Donald will achieve greater divisiveness at best. The POTUS has lately concentrated his thrust on the NFL which more than any enterprise captures America’s undivided attention. He has declared war on the most celebrated institution in America. If Karl Marx was still around he would describe Football as the opium of the American masses.

The fact that the POTUS described some of those, exhibiting their first amendment rights in the Neo- Nazi anti semitic rally in Charlottesville, as fine people who were protesting in favor of their heritage while he has characterized those protesting racial inequality as “sons of bitches”, has not passed unnoticed. 

With a mid term defeat bearing down on what is left of the original Republican Party the latter fluff around rudderless, content to see their once proud party morph into inane and sometimes dangerous tweets. In the Republican legislators funk they will be holding no Congressional hearings on the Security breeches of Ivanka and Jared nor will Session’s Justice Department investigate them.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

The controversy that provoked Trump’s  tirade started with an average quarterback, NFL player Colin Kaepernick, kneeling down during the pregame rendition of the National Anthem. He was doing so in protest against the prejudicial treatment of African Americans by the police.

The event caused a temporary storm at the time and was barely in the conscious as Kaepernick was no longer playing not having been put on the roster of any team this year. However, The Donald changed the narrative while rallying the faithful at one of his Nuremberg style rallies in Alabama, in support of a candidate in the Republican Primary. Trump is in search of a victory, any victory. He cares not of the substance. His candidate winning in a GOP Primary would compensate, in his mind, the failure to Repeal and Replace Obamacare. Breaking the NFL lock on American viewership would counter being forced to back down to North Korea’s Rocket Man. Trump’s candidate in the race in Alabama may well lose so he had to have a back up plan. 

Trump, whose brain is in his gut, thought he couldn’t lose if he resuscitated the Kaepernick beef, as who could countenance those who desecrated the American National Anthem? In addition he could ride on the back of the already lowered ratings of the NFL that had  dropped four percent this season. (The reason for this phenomenon had been put down to media over exposure with American Football which is now on all week on several modalities. There is High School Football - Friday Night, College Football - Saturday all day, NFL - all day Sunday and Sunday Night, NFL -Monday night and now on Thursday night as well. It is viewed on alternative media as well such as on line, Netflix, Yahoo and even Twitter which might have accounted for the small decrease in TV ratings). 

So The Donald gave it a full go. He exhorted Americans to leave the game if his advice was ignored. He argued in addition that the current decrease in viewership was because of him, The Donald. He also had a gratuitous plea for more violence to be brought back into the game. He yearned for a return of the senseless aggression that has been shown to increase chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

ALL THE DONALD SAID IN ALABAMA ABOUT THE KAEPERNICK CONTROVERSY

 It is instructive to repeat word for word the President of the United States’s diatribe in Alabama .

“Wouldn’t you love to see if one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired’.  You know some owner is going to do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy, he disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it. They don’t know it.

They are friends of mine, many of them. They don’t know it. They will be the most popular person for a week. They’ll be the most popular person in this country”.

“When the NFL ratings are down massively, massively. The NFL ratings are down massively. Now the number one reason happens to be they like watching what is    happening, with yours truly. They like what’s happening.  Because you know if you hit too hard. Fifteen yards! Throw him out of the game! They had that last week. I watched for a couple of minutes. Two guys, just really a beautiful tackle. Boom, 15 yards. The referee get’s on television, his wife is sitting at home, she is so proud of him. They are ruining the game. They are ruining the game. That’s what they want to do. They want to hit. They want to hit. It is hurting the game”.

“But do you know what is hurting the game more than that? When people like yourselves turn on the television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem. The only thing you could do better, is if you see it, even if it is one player, leave the stadium. I guarantee things will stop. Just pick up and leave. Pick up, leave. Not the same game anymore”

So spake the leader of the most powerful and richest nation in the world.

THE FINANCIAL MIGHT OF THE NFL AND SPORT IN GENERAL

Trump has landed himself in the middle of an issue that is not only about First Amendment Rights but big big money. He is right that several of the NFL owners are his friends and some even donated handsomely to his campaign but he would be the first to agree that they have the right to defend their investments and hopefully what they believe is right.

The NFL is THE biggest entertainment entity in America. Notwithstanding the four percent rating decrease this year, last week, four NFL games were in the top ten most watched programs on all television. Key matches occupied the first two rating slots. The annual Super Bowl has the greatest audience of any program in America and is watched by over a hundred and ten million annually. A thirty second commercial costs close on five million dollars and advertisers spend as much on their production. The value of NFL franchises are the most for any Sports Team in the world. The Dallas Cowboys team is valued on close on five billion dollars as compared to three and a half billion for the likes of Real Madrid that has a world wide appeal.

It is obvious that sport, worldwide,  is becoming a license to print money. There is the apparel and equipment either worn or used by the fans or the players such as in golf and tennis. Sponsorship is through the roof. Federer is about to sign a ten year deal with Nike for thirteen million a year, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are the richest sportsmen ever as a result of their deals. The top NFL players, without sponsorship earn over twenty million dollars annually. The owners of NFL teams are garnering about a one hundred million dollars a year while the value of their franchises increase. Sponsorships such as the naming of stadiums are usually long term deals. The New York Jets and New York Giants have just signed a four hundred million dollars contract for the naming of their Football Stadium after the MetLife insurance company. Incidentally TV and media sponsorship payments are close to eight billion a year.

WHAT HAPPENED THE SUNDAY AFTER TRUMP’S ALABAMA

Roger Goodell, the twenty four million dollar a year Commissioner of the NFL, set the tone of response to the Trump intervention which had extended a one man protest to near unanimous support by all the constituencies of the NFL. He claimed that, “Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, and a great game and all great players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities". 

Then the players almost to a man, in one way or another, regardless of their viewpoints, supported Kaepernick and the right to protest. Teams either did not take the field for the anthem while others locked arms in support of those who bent their knees. They were joined on the field by the coaches and the owners themselves.  All of the clubs have protested in one way or another Trump’s statements.

Trump extended the fight to basketball attacking the Golden State hero, the classy Stephen Curry, withdrawing his invitation to the Whitehouse as the sharpshooter was hesitant at accepting the honor. This drew an articulate response from the number one basketball player, James Lebron who claimed that the protest was not about the flag but about inequality. LeBron had already labelled the President a bum when he cancelled his invite to the Golden State champions. He further opined that the people run this country not the President. 

Perhaps the most effective of the many NFL player statements supporting the protestors, was Tom Brady probably the greatest participant ever, having been the quarterback in five winning SuperBowls. Brady had been considered a Trump supporter. He categorically disagreed with Trump echoing Goodell’s criticism of divisiveness.  

The national newspaper USA called for one of the owners to put Kaepernick back on the NFL roster.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

* Another point that was emphasized in this bohaai was that Trump picked on sports that had a large percentage of African American involvement - Football and Basketball. He then pointedly praised NASCAR racing and the winners of the National Ice Hockey League whose participants are mainly lily white. 

* Whether this will fizzle out or not only time will tell. Jay H. Ell believes that it won’t simply because Trump is unlikely to let it go. He believes he is, finally, onto a winner knowing that regardless of whether Americans support the protest the majority are not comfortable with the method. In addition his intolerant approach resonates with his base. 

* One matter is certain - the fans will not abandon the game regardless of what the POTUS says or does. 

* Read again the POTUS’S rant in Alabama and reflect that this megalomaniacal violent abusive divisive sophistry was made in the context of having just risked a nuclear war with similar irresponsibility. 

• So far Trump has delivered his voters nothing - no tax reform. infrastructure, no wall, no high paying jobs, no improved cheaper healthcare…. All he has done is, spitefully, see to it that Obamacare would become more expensive. 

* Just because African Americans have been successful doesn’t mean that they have to “more grateful” than their white counterparts and shut up.

THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY AFTER 240 DAYS

If nothing else the turbulent Trump Presidency has shaken up the static political scene. With the Russian investigation closing in on him, he has put on the blinkers busying himself with moves that have succeeded in widening the cracks in the GOP. Frustrated by the failure of the Republican Congressional majorities to move his agenda, nearly eight months into his tumultuous reign, he has decided to go it alone and throw out the traditional role of a President operating as his Party Leader who collaborates with his Party’s caucus. The latter behavior added to a host of other factors such as the departure of his guru Bannon has jolted the stultifying dead and gridlocked Congress throwing the Republican Establishment in total disarray rendering them floundering and impotent. For the moment the POTUS has thrown in his lot with the Democrats.  For whatever reasons, with everything going for them, the Democrats are too facing problems. The Dems were licking their chops as the stars were all in line for them to effortlessly retake Congress but Hillary, opening campaign wounds with Bernie Sanders, has potentially created a division that long ago appeared healed. 

BACK HOME IN THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE - CHAOS

Objectively, from every angle, the Trump WhiteHouse is in a chaotic state. The key personal closest to the POTUS, most having been there on day one, are now gone and include - Reince Priebus, (Chief of Staff), Stephen Bannon, (Chief Advisor), Michael Flynn, (National Security Officer), Sean Spicer, (Press Secretary), Mike Dukbe, (Communications Director), Anthony Scaramucci, (Communications Director),  Sebastian Gorke, (White House Advisor), K. T. McFarland, (Deputy National Security Advisor), Katie Walsh, (Deputy Chief of Staff), and other key WhiteHouse appointees, Ezra Cohen - Watnick, Tera Dahl, Derek Harvey, Rich Higgins and Michael Short. Trump has had two infamous firings - both Justice Department Officials, Sally Yates (Acting Attorney General) and Richard Comey, (FBI Director). The only key WhiteHouse administrators standing are daughter Ivanka and son in law Jared, both whose experience in Government is zilch. 

Added to this unprecedented exit is Trump’s ability to fill only thirty three of the two hundred and twenty top Cabinet posts as compared to the Obama Administration that had placed a one hundred and twenty - six at this stage of the Presidency. So in short for a host of reasons Trump simply is unable to appoint, maintain or recruit a stable staff, let alone a critical mass needed to govern. 

The bizarre workings of the WhiteHouse have been force fed to the world via daily leaks from his staff as to the dysfunction of Trump’s style of management and leadership. He thrives on division amongst his “team”, hence the rush to the exits of so many. General Kelly his current Chief of Staff has brought some order as to who can wander in and out of the Oval Office and send suggestions to the leader of the free world. Trump still indiscriminately tweets, not bothering to separate his attacks of TV personalities from major international and national policy statements. It is fair to say that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Added to the strained atmosphere is the most recent directive to WhiteHouse staff not to lie to the Mueller investigation to protect the President. 

It also appears that the Cabinet members feel free to cross their leader at will. Gary Cohn, his National Economic Council Director, publicly attacked the President on his equivocal response to the right wing anti semitic violence in Charlottesville. State Secretary Tillerson has made it quite clear that his interpretations of Foreign Policy differ from that of Trump. Defense Secretary Mathis has accepted the role of mopping up after the President reassuring allies that America still stands firm on its defense commitments to its allies, especially in NATO. The most outstanding act of defiance has been effected by what remains of the Bannon faction, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions, withstanding unimaginable abuse, refused Trump’s injunction not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation then declined to do the right thing and resign when Trump repeatedly berated him in public adding that had he known that Sessions would have adapted this stance he wouldn’t have appointed him in the first place. To add insult to injury Sessions refused to defend DACA in the courts forcing Trump to have to wade prematurely into the highly explosive issue. (He fired his last Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for declining to defend Administration Policy of his Muslim travel bans).

Mix all of the above with a generous helping of chronic lying, inane tweet storms and back and forth reversals of core policies and add a dash of a full scale enquiry into him and close confidants. Then liberally splash his political defense of his legal woes where he attacks the fired FBI Director whose credibility has been affirmed by both branches of the Legislature and you have a recipe for a tsunami.

In conclusion it is fair to say that the depleted ever changing crew in the helter - skelter WhiteHouse are not functioning as a cohesive unit and do not project any confidence that they have a firm grip on the management of the nation. 

THE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP AND THE TRUMP CONSTITUENCY

Trump has taken on Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan the Republican Senate Majority Leader and Republican Speaker of the House respectively. Not really understanding how the American Constitution works he has made it quite clear that the pair of them are incompetent and useless in that they are unable to get anything done. There he has been a well publicized furious spat between him and Mitch McConnell who has not hesitated in informing the world, in polite terms of course, that the POTUS is motherless when it comes to the workings of Government.

Rather than accept responsibility for the total failure for his legislative agenda he has blamed the Republican Congress, mockingly pointing out that that they had promised for seven years to repeal and replace Obamacare and had produced nothing. McConnell has publicly countered the President’s narrative while Ryan has appeared totally ineffectual by failing to tell Trump the way it is. Nothing more characterizes Trump’s attitude towards the Republican leaders than his latest Press Secretary’s response to the fact that Trump had not invited the Republican leadership to his meeting with their Democratic Congressional counterparts. Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that as Trump was the Republican leader it was not necessary to invite any others!

So Trump has made it quite clear that he is the Republican boss and he doesn’t need the Republican Congressional Establishment. 

UNANIMOUS BIPARTISAN CONDEMNATION AT TRUMP EXTREMES

The POTUS has met with unanimous, bipartisan, veto proof resistance by Congress to two major planks in his policy. Firstly on the international front, against his expressed wishes, Congress passed strengthened sanctions against Russia for their interference in the American Presidential elections. They did so fully cognizant of the fact that Trump has not even conceded the Russian role and that he wanted to axe the existing sanctions. On the national front Trump’s wishy washy whitewashing of the ultra right wing which caused such an uproar was countered by the entire legislative branch that near unanimously unequivocally did what he should have done by passing an Act that in no uncertain terms condemned those factions, including the Klu Klux Clan, that were responsible for the racial and anti semitic upheavals in Charlottesville. 

There is unanimity in Congress against Trump’s off the wall positions, (no pun intended), nationally and inter nationally. This joint revulsion does not bode well for Trump in the outcome of a referral for impeachment. It has already irked him that the Republican  controlled Congress have not only “not protected him” but have gone full steam ahead in their investigations of Russian involvement in the Presidential elections.

TRUMP - HIS NEWEST BEST FRIENDS NANCY AND CHUCK AND THE EXASPERATED GOP

Next up in this Donald in Wonderland saga is the blossoming bromances between Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House Minority Leader and Chuck Schumer the Democratic Minority Senate leader. He undercut the Republican leadership and took away their bargaining position by doing a deal with the Democrats on the raising of the debt ceiling for three months and a Harvey Hurricane Relief package. The debt ceiling is a particularly divisive issue in the Republican caucuses. It is holy grail to some factions that it should not be increased. Their argument is if money is needed it cannot be garnered unless an equal amount of expenditure is cut. For practical purposes that would entail taking money from one or other social program. 

Now Ryan and McConnell both know that Harvey needed funding. They are also painfully aware that the debt ceiling needs to be raised. However, they would liked to be in control of this delicate issue so as not to upset their brittle caucuses even more. Ryan wanted to avoid the repetitive pain that revisiting this subject might cause. The Speaker also wished to avoid having the fact that Government spending was increasing in the minds of certain sections of the electorate as it could harm the GOP chances in the 2018 mid term elections. He wanted to couple the Harvey relief with an eighteen month fix of the borrowing by the Government. This would take the matter off the table till after the elections. The problem with Ryan is with his cumbersome factions and only a twenty - four majority in the House it takes an eternity to get his act together. So Trump took the easy way out. He did a deal with the Dems linking Harvey finance to a three month increase of the debt ceiling. The outcome was the bill easily passed with all the Dems voting for and ninety of Republicans against, including several from States that were hit by the hurricane. The media hailed the Dems outmaneuvering Trump and the GOP.

Then there is DACA, one of those campaign promises that Trump has buyer’s remorse over. While his racist credentials are unchallengeable, (Blog: “Apartheid America”), the forced expulsion of eight hundred thousand innocents has major opposition - seventy - five percent of the electorate. However, the very vocal right wing media went ballistic. The influential Anne Coulters, the Rush Limbaughs, the Laura Ingrahams and the Mark Levins have labelled him a sell out. 

His initial statement giving Congress six months to fix DACA terminated any cooperation with the Hispanic Community that had surprisingly given him the same support that they had showered on Romney, (thirty percent). The dealings with his uppity Congress leaders and their inability to deliver stat veered his efforts once again to his newest best friends - Nancy and Chuck. First he took dictation for a tweet from sweet Nancy the content of which was to reassure the DACA recipients that nothing could happen for six months - no one would round them up. The quid pro quo from the Dems would be more money for Security but would not include the wall.

Then at another meeting sans any Congressional Republican the outline of the deal was confirmed.This evoked massive hysteria all round from the Republicans as this issue is one that part of the base are heavily against as are several Legislators. While this is more or less what Ryan and McConnell would have gone for but they are so miffed that they may look for a way out.

Finally, the POTUS has supposedly provided his latest chums reassurances about tax reform confirming that the richest may even pay more and the middle class and the poorest less. After all he had spouted on the campaign in line with Republican orthodoxy this has to be the last straw. 

The Republicans have to take some comfort from the fact that Trump can renege on anything and everything in the time it takes to tweet one hundred and forty characters. 

BANNON  AND TRUMP ADD TO THE GOP FACTIONS

Stephen Bannon, who was mistakenly been labelled as Trump’s brain, (he couldn’t be because Trump hasn’t got one), has been unceremoniously axed, with all but one of his crew, from the WhiteHouse. In fairness Bannon was sent packing less for ideological reasons than personal ones. He was an enemy of favorite son Jared, he irritated new Chief of Staff Kelly and most significantly he was being given credit as the man behind Trump. Now Trump brooks no competition, he pointedly stated that Bannon only joined his campaign long after he had bottled the nomination up.

Bannon has unlimited money at his disposal courtesy of a billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah who controls a PAC. They backed Trump in the election big time but their index man is Stephen Bannon. Bannon, while claiming to being the POTUS’s wingman on the outside, has already put down markers to stake his independence. He has criticized Trump’s decision to fire Comey as the biggest political mistake in modern politics. This in the context of Trump continually justifying the decision and attacking Comey. So from the POTUS’S world this disloyalty is treason. The DACA deliberations have given Bannon the opportunity to restate his key nationalist anti immigrant philosophy warning his former boss that there could be no compromise on “amnesty”.

So it is time to assess the influence of the uncharismatic Bannon. He runs a small but influential digital media outlet Breitbart News. He is focussed on his desire to curtail immigration dramatically, expel illegals and to maintain America’s original demographic character - code for white. He definitely is the guru of what has been labelled the alt right - a loose conglomeration of white supremacists, racists, Neo Nazis in addition to super Conservatives. He has told the Neo Nazis to get lost but they won’t as they have stated that the Trump/Bannon policy was the one they want. In short he has added a pure nationalistic ideological faction to the Republican mix. How large this might be remains to be seen but Bannon without Trump is going to flounder. Bannon with all his money has threatened to put up candidates in the 2018 Primaries whether they will support Trump or not is obviously moot at this point.

But as far as the GOP is concerned they need another clear cut faction participating in the Primaries like a hole in the head. Jay H. Ell cannot imagine that on his own Bannon can become a national force. He can certainly weaken the GOP and for the rootless right wing bands he has finally given them a home. This can turn them into sizable pressure group. 

Another spin off all this is that if polling is anything to go buy, distinct from Bannon, there is a Trump GOP faction pure and simple. The Trump faction has no manifesto other than Trump is the Man. The Donald, lest we forget won the Republican nomination hand’s down and despite the disastrous Presidency still has a mid thirty’s approval rating. The question remains how many of this thirty odd percent are more Republican than they are Trumpist and how many would follow Bannon and the Conservative media people. Jay H. Ell believes that of the thirty - five percent stalwarts that still approve of the Presidency over half will follow Trump - right or wrong - after all the Wall is still top of the Trump agenda 

HILLARY AND BERNIE

Just as the gleeful Democrats were basking in the Republicans disintegration and in the knowledge that without them nothing could get passed in Washington, Hillary Clinton’s book “What Happened” hit the stands. Although reasonably aggrieved, Hillary picked the wrong time to bare all. Amongst her laundry list of reasons for failure were the Russians, Comey, misogyny, her good self and Bernie’s attacks on her. Bernie was relentless in chucking her into the swamp of Wall Street, in many ways reinforcing the Trump mantra about the Establishment. 

Since the election Bernie has stomped the country having lost not an iota of his enthusiasm and following. He has been focussed on the health care issue and now has support of most of the Democrats in the Senate for the introduction of a single payer system for all. At this point in history it won’t fly and Nancy Pelosi the Democratic House Leader has declined to join in and Chuck Schumer has been silent. 

To this day Bernie is still The Independent Senator, not The Democratic Senator from Vermont. Hillary has brought this up and implied that he had no right to be in the Democratic Primary. Welcome to the real world of Trump and Bernie. It remains to be seen whether this spat will have any lasting impact. To date it hasn’t because, as Bernie so proudly relates, many of his policies are now those of the Democratic Party. In addition Sanders understands politics and he knows that if the Democratic Establishment freeze him out he can join Bannon on the fringe. His ideas are only as influential as the Democratic Party is strong.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

This is obviously a major transition period in American history. The Republican Party is splintering as faction after faction go after each other and new ones are created. The Democratic Party has been, thus far more adept at integrating the revolutionary changes taking place amongst its electorate into its party platform. This body politic uprising has resulted in the election of a populist President whose sole commitment is to himself. Notwithstanding that fact, he has ridden the tiger of nativism and xenophobia which was latent in the country. There is cause for some consolation in that his extremes of policy have met with near unanimous Congress condemnation.

Ironically, his cynical lack of any real conviction has allowed him to begin to abandon some of what got him elected. Sizing up the gridlock in Washington he has, for the moment, created a consensus between the Democratic Party and the middle of the road Republicans. He is however running out of options and to add to his woes is the systematic relentless Special Prosecutor investigation into his and his campaign’s collusion into the Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election which may prematurely end his reign. 

The upshot of this upheaval will be partly resolved in the 2018 Mid Term elections and the prospects look decidedly dickey for the President’s Party. However of most interest is what faction will emerge triumphant in the GOP. The Dems will probably emerge intact having moved to the left in concert with Bernie’s arousal of the base into activism.

  

APARTHEID AMERICA

Lest there be the slightest doubt that the Trump Presidency has a racist agenda it has been dispelled by his decision to end the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, (DACA), program that legitimized 800,000 undocumented immigrants that were brought to America as six year old children and know no other country than America. The decision makes no moral, economic and even political sense and shares the same insane cruel twisted logic of the apartheid South African regime that also desired to keep South Africa white. 

The decision, coupled with Trump’s unambiguous campaign rhetoric, his association with the national purist Bannon faction - including the latter’s earliest protege, Jeff Sessions and his chief lieutenant “alt right” leader, Robin Spenser, who has called for a white state, the POTUS's labelling of Mexicans as inferior and criminals, his failure to outright condemn alt right racists who were shouting anti semitic slogans and his recent pardoning of the unashamed tormentor of Latinos, Sheriff  Arpaio, sets the stage for an attempt to turn America back to the Confederate days, whose leaders’ statues he so much admires. For those who take hope from Trump’s apparent ambivalence, forget it - there is his racial agenda to ensure America remains white. 

 A CLIFF NOTE ON AMERICAN RACISM 

South Africa and the United States share a remarkable genesis in common, a point that Robert Kennedy made in his Academic Freedom Speech at the University of Cape Town in 1966. Both countries were colonized by predominantly the English and the Dutch in the middle of the seventeenth century. Both countries were part of the British Empire. Jay H. Ell believes that while both were initially populated by those seeking religious freedom the USA differed in that  entrepreneurs and fortune seekers overwhelmingly chose the “New World”. America’s demographics became further altered by the fact that it was bolstered by wave after wave of immigration which allowed its economy to prosper beyond imagination. The “Immigrants” included twelve and a half million “imported” slaves who were the backbone of the Southern Confederate economy. 

The American colonizers desire for freedom led to the War of Independence which severed the ties from England. (South Africa only lost its connection with the British Commonwealth in the early sixties as a result of apartheid). In the economically thriving United States the 1850 Civil War intervened and was fought over the question of slavery in the belief that it was an evil practice that needed to be eliminated. However, the liberation did not end discrimination. The progenitor to the Trump racist resurgence began in the early twentieth century with the Jim Crow laws. America witnessed an ugly period where the white hooded Klu Klux Clan terrorized and lynchings were not uncommon. It is fair to say that the real moves for equality in America took off from the mid twentieth century with key judicial decisions declaring, inter alia, that separate facilities were inherently unequal and the earlier Brown versus Board of Education outlawing the segregation of educational institutions. Martin Luther King with his iconic resistance precipitated President Johnson’s Civil Rights Laws a decade later. 

Today the focus of the racial purists is specifically on the Latinos, who represent a sixth of the American population, (forty million citizens), a third of whom are immigrants and all non caucasian immigrants generally. There are estimated to be currently eleven million illegal immigrants. The Latino birth rate is far greater than the indigenous whites but whatever way the numbers are looked at now the forecast for 2050, by the Pew Research Center, is that whites will represent only forty seven percent of the American population. That projection however is made on the basis of current demographics remaining stable and if legal immigration proceeds at its current pace with its present selection process. The Trump regime is dead set on reversing both the variables of the current demographic make up and the present immigration policy in an attempt to keep America white. In addition to expulsions he proposes limiting legal immigration to half and allowing only English speakers - code for whites

A CLIFF NOTE ON SOUTH AFRICAN RACISM

After the Second World War, South Africa was poised to make cautious steps to decrease discrimination. The Prime Minister General Smuts, a world figure and a founder of both the League of Nations and United Nations, stung by the attack of racism by India at the UNO, was moving towards improving the lot of Blacks. He was to be shocked by an election reversal where a minority of voters, just as occurred in America, ousted him and elected a Nationalist segregationist Government. 

Within a decade and a half the discriminatory legislation of Apartheid, euphemistically labelled “Separate Development”, was institutionalized. Legislation was introduced which sort to see that whites would be in the majority in South Africa. The argument was that the indigenous blacks were not citizens of “white” South Africa. Several stratagems were introduced to effect this. The blacks had traditional homelands which would now become their designated nation states. The fact that many were not born there or had not lived there for generations was considered irrelevant. They, therefore, despite their economic contributions and the moral and natural law implications were not to be afforded any rights in “white South Africa” and would be designated as visiting laborers under permit. Visitors from a land that many of them did not know. Any superflous blacks would be banished.

This fiction was backed by legislation which sought to keep white South Africa white. Key to this objective was the Pass Law which mandated that any black South African had to have a document on their person which allowed them to work in white South Africa. Special courts were created as Blacks were repeatedly and systematically sent back to their homelands. Other legislation sort to classify races to discriminate and segregate. The fact that all this was bizarre and did not allow South Africa to prosper economically did not deter the master race. It is history that this social engineering racist experiment failed. Apartheid was finally recognized to have been a disgraceful historical episode that had caused untold misery and had stultified growth and development of the black peoples of South Africa. 

WHAT THIS MEANS

So both white Trump America and white South Africa faced threats to white supremacy by virtue of being outnumbered. The Southern African menace was from their indigenous peoples and the American peril from those that they had brought into the country one way or another. It matters naught that this process helped make America the richest and most powerful in the world. Both regimes have acted irrationally and cruelly in order to maintain racial superiority. Both regimes in power used a legal fiction to justify their behavior. South Africa argued that the blacks all had tribal origins that had homelands and “legally” belonged there. Trump’s America has pretended that those had been in the economy for years didn’t really belong in America as it was a nation of laws. He sought to unscramble the omelette of immigration under the canard that they were focussing on the “illegals” although they had been part and parcel of the American scene for generations. The fact that that most of the illegals are employed and an essential component of the economy is irrelevant. The fact that the best way to rectify this “illegal” situation would be to penalize the employers who were defying the law by employing those renegades was irrelevant as the real objective was to make America white again.

WHAT IS AT STAKE

What is at stake is everything that America has stood for and made America great. South Africa got a lucky break with two giant statesmen who negotiated a peaceful solution to the South African impasse. (The fact that that this demonstration of gigantic historical statesmanship is now at risk of being negated is irrelevant to this discussion). 

America, with all its faults, has become the leader and savior of the free world and the exemplar of human rights in the twentieth century. Twice they made the difference on what side triumphed between good and evil on the world stage. They then for four decades held the line on human rights versus suppression. Central to their legitimacy was the progress of human rights within their own country and their welcoming of “the poor and huddled masses yearning to be free…. “. All this is now on the line.

It is also forgotten that the DACA teenagers and young adults represent the cream of the crop. They have been vetted up the ying yang. They had the guts to sign onto Obama’s program with the inherent risk that has now become reality. 

The financial implications of this decision are humongous and vary according to what is measured and over what period of time. The Center for American Progress, as reported in Fortune, estimate the financial loss to the economy to be $463 billion dollars in a decade. This very young demographic which is desperately needed in the aging American population would also contribute a much needed $24 billion to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security over this ten year period. When the mission to remove the eleven million illegals is calculated the devastation to the economy will be mind boggling. 

Most calamitous is that the integrity of the American Administration is at stake. Trump has already made the word of the United States, at best, suspect in the international arena. This local action is a betrayal of trust of unimaginable proportions and it is little wonder that seventy - four percent of Republicans oppose it.

WHERE IT STANDS NOW AND WHAT CAN SAVE THE DAY

While Trump’s Presidency ultimately has to hit the rocks as the Russian investigations grind on, in the interim he can and has already destroyed a century of American dominance of moral authority. The question is what can be done to halt America from falling further into the abyss and reverse the process. To a large extent the responsibility lies with the members of the Party he purports to represent. The Republican Congressmen have to step to the plate and unconditionally condemn and stop this movement that has hijacked their party and threatens to consign America to the dustbin of history. The legislators will be supported by nearly every institution and commercial entity in the country, not to mention the burgeoning ongoing street protests and at least sixty - five percent of the population. Major Cities have indicated that they will take on the rogue racist cabal led by the nonentities Bannon and Sessions  and President Trump. They represent the lowlife faction that for the entire history of America’s existence have sought to promote racial superiority above the values that the Founding Fathers sought so hard to define, enshrine and protect. 

It thus bears repeating that Trump, Bannon and Sessions and Co do not exist in a vacuum. While they are the inheritors of the canards of a long line of racists that have manipulated the expansive democracy, that has made America Great, with the objective of turning the country into a white isolationist bunker. This miscreant entity is currently the controlling component of the Republican Party and have yet to be told that they are not welcome and should go to hell. That action alone will help isolate this fringe movement that now has more influence than their numbers justify. It will come at a political cost but the alternative has to be too ghastly to contemplate. 

Should this philosophy become the manifesto of the Republican Party, with or without Trump, the Republican Establishment will have sold out not only Lincoln’s legacy but America itself. They will have been contributory in turning the United States into an apartheid society which discriminates on the basis of race and color. The DACA  decision which banishes eight hundred thousand individuals to “homelands” that they have never seen is reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid policy and reveals Trump’s ultimate objective. It is not the beginning of the end it is the end.