How Dems are playing into the racists' hands — and setting this country back 7 decades

The 2024 election that might end up finishing off the United States of America for good was fueled at its ugly core by racism, and dangerous, centuries-old white grievance.

And if you are allowing yourself to be gaslighted by our mainstream media and too many Democratic politicians into thinking it wasn't, well, you are sliding toward being a major part of the problem. Worse, you are playing right into a career racist’s little hands, as he tries to beat us into a full surrender on this important issue.

It has always been about race, because the very first thing Donald Trump did when he began loudly hinting at a run for the presidency was make it about race.

From roughly 2011 until 2016 the America-attacking Trump ignited and reignited the reprehensible “birther” conspiracy seemingly after every one of his six meals a day. His relentless drumbeat that Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen, and that he had “extremely credible sources” to verify it, set a fire inside the cold hearts of millions of white Americans who just couldn’t stomach the notion of a Black man getting two terms in our nation’s highest office.

Trump banged his drum, and too damn many white people danced with glee.

NOW READ: Ex-Republican blasts 'irresponsible' Trump voters — and says they should be held accountable

By 2016, the two-ton liar made race the foundation of his campaign, and his racist base absolutely loved him for it. MAGA was born, and the death of civil rights was their cold-blooded target.

And we all know there’s not a single thing this lonely, empty man won’t do for love ...

It has always been about race, because the first thing Trump did when he once again assumed his crooked position in our White House three weeks ago was make it about race ...

Within hours of ascending to his padded throne, Trump resumed his ugly attack on the diversity, equity and inclusion that truly helps keep our diverse country in the vicinity of great. He even appointed an apartheid-loving billionaire to crack his bloody whip to beat the issue to death inside our government that is supposed to serve all the people.

And when a plane tragically collided with a helicopter in his new hometown just nine days after his inauguration? Well, DEI was to blame for that, too.

The 2024 election was ALL about race, and I am way past sick and fucking tired of people telling me, a 65-year-old white man, that MAGA isn’t using race to beat us like a club and drag us by our hair back to the 1950s. The only person who is more of an expert on this sickening issue than me, and what lies in the cold, dead hearts of too many white people in this country, is a 66-year-old white man ...

Unfortunately, I know what makes these broken people tick.

I bet you I have read 129 different things in the media since November’s disastrous election warning liberals like myself not to misread this moment. We’ve been scolded not to blame racism for the hell that overcame us three months ago, and that there were many other factors besides racism to explain Trump’s win.

We’ve been rapped across the knuckles and told to never campaign on identity politics again. It’s a losing issue.

Except that’s exactly what Trump ran on. And if racism played no part in the outcome of the 2024 campaign, then why in the hell did the racist win?

Why did the man, who in addition to the sickening birther conspiracy, tell us he “saw fine people on both sides” of a KKK rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, win?

Why did the man, who has discriminated against Black people his entire damn professional life, win?

Why did the man, who took out full-page newspaper ads, and called for New York state to reinstate the death penalty against five innocent Black and Latino teenagers who were set to stand trial for allegedly beating and raping a white woman in Central Park, win?

Why did the man, who has regularly used the terms “animal” and “rabid” to describe Black district attorneys, win?

Look, I could go on for hours citing examples of this man’s overt racism, but I’d rather pose a quick question that doesn’t get asked near enough:

Why didn’t any or all of these things disqualify this monster from running for our nations’s highest office?

Read that again and sit with it for a bit...

Are we to believe this is OK and normal, and we just move on?

Is this the example we want to set for our children, who are born into this quaking world bright-eyed and innocent, but only later taught to judge and oppress?

Trump’s lifelong racist fetish is easily his most endearing trait to his tongue-dragging cult. It fuels them.

The fact is, he was a complete failure as a president the first time around. He didn’t pass a single piece of meaningful legislation to help Americans, just padded the bottomless pockets of the white and wealthy, and drove Obama’s economy off a cliff.

He was such a failure that by the end of his reign of terror, Americans were dropping like flies in the midst of a pandemic that he refused to take any responsibility for. No other country in the world had death rates as high as America.

And in the middle of all this sick and dying, he capped off his failed first term by launching the most violent internal attack on America since the Civil War.

He belongs in jail, because if any person of color had pulled that bit of treason, they’d be locked away forever. You know I’m right about that …

Racism has been at the core of Republican politics for more than one hundred years, but the party has never had such a natural talent like Trump to exploit it so eagerly.

White people are having a real time of it right now in this mess of a country. In fact, they are having a real time of it other places, too, like France, Germany and England, where white nationalism is on the rise.

Racism is now a global pandemic, and the only way to cure it is to call it out wherever and whenever you see it, and stomp it out — not excuse it, or warn us away from even bringing it up.

That is called submission, and submission is exactly what Trump and his hateful followers in Congress want.

At this terrible moment in American history, an orange master has finally unchained his white, knuckle-dragging supporters to be just as despicable as they want to be.

He has replaced their brakes with an accelerator. Instead of asking them to hold their racist tongues, he has handed them a megaphone.

I was gobsmacked Monday when one of my “friends” on Facebook, who I once knew as something approaching a dear friend some 50 years ago, started an openly racist thread complaining about the Super Bowl’s halftime show. It was amazing how many people jumped both feet first into the vile mud she was slinging. At one point she raged, “THERE WERE NO WHITE PEOPLE IN THE SHOW!!!!”

To which I responded: “So inclusion really does matter to you …”

I reckon that will blessedly be the last we ever hear of other, because she blocked me 22 seconds later. I’m telling you for a fact, race motivates this sick woman like nothing else. And don’t get her started on the “free” lunches that are provided to our hungry kids in their schools …

By avoiding the subject of race, and this revolting attack on DEI initiatives that make our country smarter and stronger, we are playing right into the hands of the racists, and setting this country back seven decades.

We’ve never needed to fight harder and with more heart on this vital issue than ever before.

The time to get into some good and necessary trouble is NOW, people.

NOW READ: Ex-Republican blasts 'irresponsible' Trump voters — and says they should be held accountable

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.