US Columnist
The Guardian
By Cas Mudde for The Guardian:
This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published a bombshell article revealing troubling emails that White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller sent to editors at Breitbart News, the far-right media outlet previously led by Steve Bannon.
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The emails, which were leaked by former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh and predate Miller’s period in the White House, show Miller’s obsession with immigration and his seemingly successful attempts to get Breitbart editors to write anti-immigration stories, some of which were based on openly white nationalist sources like American Renaissance and V-Dare.
The widespread public outrage in response to the revelations is understandable. Miller is the longest serving senior advisor to President Trump who is not related to the president, and is believed to be the architect of the White House’s draconian anti-immigration policies, which doesn’t just target “illegal immigration” but also aims to return to the country to the infamously racist immigration policy of the early 20th century.
In its response to the leak, the White House tried to discredit the source, SPLC, which has had some internal and external problems recently, but is overall a very reliable authority on the US far right (full disclaimer: I regularly collaborate with the SPLC). One White House spokesperson went full “alternative facts” by accusing SPLC of antisemitism, because Miller is Jewish. By doing so, the White House displayed a complete lack of understanding about what antisemitism is, which is no surprise, given that Trump considers himself “the least antisemitic person you’ve ever seen”.
The Democratic responses were predictable and swift as well. Of all the 2020 candidates, Julian Castro went the furthest in condemning Miller – he called him a “neo-Nazi” – but all agreed that he should resign from the White House.
But would Miller’s resignation change anything? While Miller might be behind the concrete policies that harm immigrants, he is not the main white supremacist in the White House. And Trump can easily find someone else to do Miller’s work, particularly now that almost the whole Republican party has fallen in line with their president.
It also externalizes white supremacy, as if it lives in the margins. But it has been hiding in plain sight within the Republican Party for decades. Miller wrote the emails to Breitbart when he was still an aide to Senator Jeff Sessions, who has been a consistent voice of white supremacy in Congress since 1997. And the Alabama Senator was not alone in Congress either. Representative Steve King has been the most open and unapologetic voice for the cause since 2003. Others, like representatives Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Tom Tancredo and Dana Rohrabacher, might not be as open in their support, but they all encourage white nationalism to varying degrees.
But white supremacy in the Republican party is not limited to just these individual congressmen and women. It runs much deeper than them. White supremacy was at the core of the “Southern Strategy”, dating back to the unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, which was formative for the future conservative movement. Perfected by President Richard Nixon, with the help of speechwriter Pat Buchanan, dog whistles to white supremacy have been at the heart of virtually every Republican campaign since the 1970s.
Talking of Buchanan, more than 25 years ago he gave his now famous “culture war” speech at the 1992 Republican convention. While the term has become mainly linked to the religious right, Buchanan is at least as much a white supremacist as a Christian fundamentalist. In many ways, he is the intellectual father of the Trump administration, personifying Mike Pence and Donald Trump in one.
This is why calling for Stephen Miller’s resignation wouldn’t change much. Neither Miller nor Bannon “made” Trump the white-supremacist-in-chief. And Trump is not the only problem either, as Joe Biden seems to believe. He won the Republican primaries, and presidential elections, not despite white supremacy but because of it.
In short, it is time for Democrats to face and name the ugly truth: the Grand Old Party is a party steeped in white supremacy. It is the basis of its electoral support and this will not change in the near future. By focusing on the most brazen examples, like Stephen Miller, Democrats strengthen the misguided belief that the Republican party is a good party with some bad apples. Ultimately, this will help the Republicans more than the Democrats.
- Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia
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Mudde’s conclusion is worth repeating:
In short, it is time for Democrats to face and name the ugly truth: the Grand Old Party is a party steeped in white supremacy. It is the basis of its electoral support and this will not change in the near future. By focusing on the most brazen examples, like Stephen Miller, Democrats strengthen the misguided belief that the Republican party is a good party with some bad apples. Ultimately, this will help the Republicans more than the Democrats.
Let’s take a real life example. Joe Biden clearly would be a huge upgrade over Donald Trump as President, whether or not he’s your “first choice.” But, one of Biden’s “selling points” has been his long experience in the Senate and his good working relationships and mutual respect with GOP Senators.
Yet recently, Trump has shamelessly slandered and blatantly lied about Biden while besmirching his character. This is all without a scrap of actual supporting evidence.
Under the circumstances, you would certainly expect some of Biden’s long time GOP colleagues to speak up in his defense and vouch for his character. Almost all Republicans know that Trump is a chronic liar and everything he says about Biden is untrue.
Yet, not a murmur of support or sympathy from the GOP for their “old buddy Joe.” That would cast at least some doubt on Biden’s optimism that he could work successfully with Mitch McConnell and the GOP in the Senate to get bipartisan things done for the country.
More likely, the GOP would treat him exactly like they treated his former “boss” President Obama. That means opposing and mischaracterizing everything, regardless of merit, in an attempt to make Biden a one-term President and to play to the “Trump base.”
Even if Trump loses the next election (by no means a given), his white supremacist base will remain critical to the GOP’s future. Without its enthusiastic support, they become perhaps a “20% party” until they finally cease to exist.
With it, the GOP has a decent chance of imposing some semblance of minority rule over the majority of Americans for decades to come, even if they don’t always control the White House. Given the GOP’s strength in lesser populated states which are “over represented” in the Senate, they also have a decent shot at indefinitely controlling the Senate and therefore the appointments process as well as the judiciary.
Consequently, Trump or no Trump, there is little incentive for the GOP to abandon white supremacy as their fundamental identity. Perhaps that counsels a Democratic strategy of less hand wringing about how to reach out to GOP voters and more of a focus on how to get new Democratic voters registered, get out the Democratic vote, hold the party together (note that the GOP’s “hard right” under Trump didn’t by any means split the party as many pundits had predicted), and use their potential numerical advantages, their wider appeal to a diverse America, and their more positive message to restore at least some semblance of majority rule.
Recapturing the White House certainly won’t solve all of America’s problems. But, it’s an important start.
It could be America’s last chance for survival as a Constitutional Republic.
PWS
11-19-19