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Ruben Navarrette Columnist, host & author
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Trump supporters want to be victims of anti-white racism

Ruben Navarrette Columnist, host & author
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The racial anxieties of conservative white Americans are certainly nothing new to U.S. history, but in recent years observers have warned of a range of factors that may be radicalizing right-leaning Americans into political violence and extremism. Donald Trump, in particular, often receives credit for normalizing this extremism for a new generation of Americans.

Straight Arrow News contributor Ruben Navarrette reviews some of Trump’s recent speeches and pledges to his supporters, specifically his promise to avenge the white American population, and traces the recent history of this rhetoric from the 1980s to today.

If you asked me to rank and order the top 100 problems facing America, your crime, your homelessness, drugs, division, climate change, xenophobia, etc., nowhere on that list would you find the phrase anti-white racism. Whoever heard of such a thing? That must be when the folks who devoured 99% of the pie fight you for the extra 1% and then cry foul.

Crybaby in chief: Donald Trump. If the skies turn red, seas boil, frogs fall from heaven and he is reelected, President [Trump] plans to use a second term to settle scores and get even with those who wronged him and his supporters. According to news reports, given what his close aides, including the nativist know-nothing Stephen Miller, have planned if they returned to power, one group that this bunch thinks has been wronged are white people. They intend to use the Justice Department and a perversion of more than a half century of civil rights laws to avenge the victims of what they claim is an epidemic of anti-white racism.

This is nothing new. In the 1980s, white people attacked affirmative action, insisting that it amounted to “reverse discrimination.” In the 1990s, they thought multiculturalism was a plot to make them feel guilty for the racial injustices of the past. Today, there are those who think the push for DEI, diversity, equity [and] inclusion, is all about taking things away from white people and giving it to people of color. Still, this whole concept of anti-white racism is weird for me. I spent most of the first half of my life, about 28 years, growing up in the conservative farm country of Central California, where white people own the farms and brown people work the farms, and no one lets you forget the color scheme.

If you asked me to rank an order the top 100 problems facing America, your crime, your homelessness, drugs division, climate change, xenophobia, etc. Nowhere on that list, would you find the phrase anti white racism. Whoever heard of such a thing? That must be when the folks who devoured 99% of the pie fight you for the extra 1% And then cry foul. Crybaby in chief Donald Trump. If the skies turned Red Seas, boiled frogs fall from heaven and he is reelected President plans to use a second term to settle scores and get even with those who wronged him and his supporters. According to news reports, given what his close aides including the nativist know nothing Stephen Miller, have planned if they returned to power, one group that this bunch thinks has been wronged or white people. They intend to use the Justice Department and a perversion of more than a half century of civil rights laws to avenge the victims of what they claim is an epidemic of anti white racism.

 

This is nothing new. In the 1980s white people attacked affirmative action, insisting that it amounted to quote reverse discrimination. In the 1990s, they thought multiculturalism was a plot to make them feel guilty for the racial and justices of the past. Today, there are those who think to push for dei diversity, equity inclusion is all about taking things away from white people and giving it to people of color. Still, this whole concept of anti white racism is weird for me. I spent most of the first half of my life about 28 years growing up in the conservative farm country of Central California, where white people own the farms and brown people work the farms and no one lets you forget the color scheme.

 

Another thing that was always stressed to me and other Mexican Americans, strivers and achievers who didn’t know our place, or who maybe felt less well suited to the great fields than the Ivy League was that we should stop acting like victims. Boyd I hear that phrase about 1000 times before my 30th birthday. And the more I achieved, and the higher I rose, the more I heard it.

 

The sermon was always the same. Don’t be a victim. They said, Let bygones be bygones. They said, If one day the Mexicans run things, they said, Well, you shouldn’t do to white people, white people did to you just move on. And I bought it to I bought the whole thing. I don’t know Donald Trump. I wasn’t looking to settle scores. I’m not that small and petty, even though the injustice is of my parents and my people had to endure in the 1800s and 1900s. Were real. Little did I realize, though, that the reason that white folks wanted me to toss off the victim quote, was that they could put it on.

 

That’s the whole idea. They wanted me to not be a victim, so they could have the title alter themselves. In 2024. There is no group in America. Let me say again, there is no group in America that complains more or whines louder than white men. In Michigan, or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Nebraska, you will hear white men make the case that their lives have been ruined by everything from affirmative action to globalization, to immigration, to unfair trade deals, you name it, and white men think they’ve been screwed over by it. And even though it’s Donald Trump, who has been picking up on this thread, and has now decided to be the superhero that no one needs or wants, ie the white Avenger, make no mistake, Democrats played this game to this whole thing is a bipartisan deal. Heck, in the Rust Belt states, the white guy in the union is both a Trump voter and a Biden voter, depending whose name is on the ballot, he’ll go back and forth, as long as the candidate keeps playing up the narrative that the poor guy has been victimized by take your pick immigrants who invade the country or rich fat cats who don’t pay their quote, fair share of taxes. You see the victim him you hear it from both parties? Well, we’ve had enough of that. If Trump makes it back into power he should. What’s that thing that used to tell me years ago? Yes, let bygones be bygones and just move on.

 

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