Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:11 pm
Three years ago about a month before the general election, South Carolina Senator and current Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham complained that the Republican Party “was not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” It was a stark admission of the obvious that without the ‘angry white guy’ base there would be no Republican Party. Three years later and it could not possibly be argued by any sane human being that the GOP is not an angry white guy party. An altruist may have tended toward thinking that Graham was trying to suggest that his party had better reach out to other demographics to “stay in business,” and possibly even stop cultivating hate and nothing but “angry white guys” as the party‘s only base of support; Graham did not mention the epically-angry evangelical guys, but likely because are a major component of the angry white guys.
Now that he is running for president, and admittedly not winning over the angry white guy base to support his kind of candidacy, it appears that Graham is complaining that Trump is stealing all the angry white guys’ support that are crucial for Graham to have a relevant campaign and chance for success. He will never get the angry white guy support unless he changes his tune and stops making derogatory remarks about them just because they support his rival Donald Trump.
This week, Graham acknowledged that the “angry white guy” vote still exists, and then bemoaned the fact that they are flocking to the GOP‘s angry white-guy presidential candidate Donald Trump and not Lindsey Graham. In fact, Graham complained that Trump appeals solely to the angry white guys in Republican ranks that the South Carolina senator said represented the “dark side” of the GOP; as if it was something bad. The “dark side” has allowed Trump to dominate the Republican presidential race and drives the rest of the Republican hopefuls to keep pace with, and emulate, angry white guy Donald Trump.
According to Graham, that “dark side,” the angry white guys, only represent a small minority of the Republican Party. However, it is true that there is a dark side of the GOP, but it is not a “small minority” by any estimation; or the loudest angry white guy pulling in the most Republican support would not be “dominating the presidential race.” It is something that Graham, Trump, and every Republican presidential candidate knows is true. Trump is the only candidate audacious and savvy enough speak the angry white guy language because really, he has nothing whatsoever to lose and a Republican presidential nomination to gain; just by appealing to the very substantial Republican “dark side” made up entirely of very angry white supremacists.
The past few months have not been about Donald Trump the candidate; they have been about Trump exposing the Republican base as inherently racist and Trump as a master at manipulating the entire GOP into jumping on the white supremacist bandwagon. It is not that the Republican Party, or its politicians were not representative of their racist base prior to Trump, they certainly were. But with Trump‘s blatant appeal to white supremacists garnering significant support, the candidates have had to abandon their cloak of tolerance and reveal what Trump has exposed about the base and its representatives in government; rank racism and white supremacy.
The so-called angry white guys Trump appeals to made their ‘white supremacist‘ bona fides known over the past couple of weeks. Media reported everywhere that one of Trump‘s ‘angry white guy‘ supporters lashed out at American citizen, and highly-regarded Univision journalist, Jorge Ramos, and told him to “get out of my country!” At an Alabama rally where Trump fed the angry white guys all the hate they could possibly digest, several typical Southern white supremacist Republicans shouted “White Power” in response to Trump‘s message of hate against Latinos. A few days ago, as if to highlight the white supremacist mindset Trump is appealing to, renowned former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Dukes endorsed Trump for president because he is “the best of the lot of presidential candidates, he has a good sense of what people want to hear, and he understands the real sentiment of America. He has really said some incredibly great things recently;” and they have appealed exclusively to the white supremacist, angry white guys, that make up the GOP base of support.
These angry white guys Trump appeals to, and Graham claims are the “dark side” of the Republican Party and white supremacists, have a specific vision of the kind of America they think Trump is going to create. It was no accident, or miscalculation, that Trump attempted to tie Hispanic undocumented immigrants to African American protesters that Republicans call thugs. It was a blatant dog whistle to the Republican racists who believe that when Trump says “we will take our country back and make it great again,” it will be back to the era when African Americans were slaves and not allowed citizenship in a country that was predominately white. It is one of the reasons that Trump and other Republicans‘ call to abolish the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship resonates with the “angry white guys” that make up the Republican Party and not, as Graham claims just the dark side; it is all dark side.
It is noteworthy that prior to the 13th and 14th Amendments, African slaves were not citizens of the United States and that being the case none of their descendants could possibly be real American citizens if birthright citizenship is abolished. These Trump supporters are the angry white guys Lindsey Graham wants to support his candidacy and there is no doubt that if they came out cheering for a Graham candidacy, the South Carolina senator would not call them the dark side of the party‘s base.
Lindsey Graham hardly says anything worthwhile, but he has fairly assessed how Trump represents the racist base of the GOP. Graham said “a Trump nomination would ‘kill’ the GOP” and condemned Trump‘s immigration plan as “Joseph McCarthy-like.” Graham even took a swipe at Reince Priebus and complained that “Trump is digging a big hole and the chairman of our party said Trump was a net positive. Let me tell you, he’s hurting our party.” He also said Trump‘s plan to get rid of birthright citizenship was constitutionally unsound, and although Graham is completely correct, no-one else in his white supremacist party remotely agrees with what is possibly the first sane thing Graham has said in ages.
It is telling that on the one hand, Graham has no problem condemning Trump‘s white supremacist appeal to the GOP‘s “angry white guy” base, and yet he obviously lusts for their support because he ended his rant against Trump with an invitation for the reality show star to “Come to South Carolina. I’ll beat his brains out.” In a battle to win over the GOP‘s angry white guy base, it is too late for Graham and he knows it. Trump owns the white supremacist base and unless Lindsey calls for an all-out race war to “make America great (white) again,” those diminishing numbers of angry white guys are going to continue giving Trump all their support.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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