What do Philadelphia, Mississippi and Tulsa, Oklahoma have in common!
Well, to begin with:
Philadelphia, Mississippi
“On August 3, 1980, Ronald Reagan gave his first post-convention speech at the Neshoba County Fair after being officially chosen as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. He said, "I believe in states' rights... I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment." He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them".[7]”
"Philadelphia in June1964 was the scene of the murders of activists James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian,Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old Jewish anthropology student from New York City; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old Jewish CORE organizer and former social worker, also from New York. Their deaths demonstrated the risks that activists took to secure the constitutional rights of African Americans."
This signaled the beginning of the modern GOP fascist takeover of America. In effect, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was the father of the modern fascist GOP [not, as some assert, Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon], and the fascist “grandfather” of Donald J. Trump! Although, admittedly, for today's GOP racist base, Ronald Reagan would be deemed not racist enough!
It was not accidental that Ronald Reagan chose Philadelphia, Mississippi as the location for his first speech after securing the GOP nomination in 1980. He was a sending a signal. A very real, racist signal to those in America who live for the resurrection of the Confederate States of America [for White Supremacist]. For the restoration of racism in America: White Supremacy Rule over people of color. The restoration of “States’ Rights”!
Of course, the hypocrisy involved in Reagan’s choice of Philadelphia, Mississippi cannot be overstated. He knew that in order for the fascist takeover of America to be accomplished, racism would have to be an essential and fundamental tool in that endeavor! If fascism stands for anything, it stands for HYPOCRISY writ large in the GOP!
Reagan spoke of “states’ rights” for a specific reason. Historically speaking, in America, “states’ rights” has always been code for SLAVERY [the RIGHT of individual states in the USA to own African human beings and exploit them for profit just like any other crop be it Cotton, Corn, Cattle or Tobacco bought and sold on the open market [in the case of slaves, the open slave market]!
Reagan’ chose of Philadelphia, Mississippi was by no means an “accident”. Unfortunately, though, from the perspective of the racist White Supremacists who supported him, Reagan was not racist enough for them nor did he move rapidly enough to achieve their racist wet dream of a “new Confederacy”. Essentially, Ronald Reagan was a B Movie actor, playing a role, being directed by his fascist overlords to portray himself to the racist base as a racist. In their hearts, genuine, devout racists knew he was “not one of them”! They knew hew was only “acting” pretending to be a genuine racist!
His presidency did establish and express the merger of fascism and racism within the GOP. Beginning with Reagan, the GOP fully embraced racism as part and parcel of its permanent political platform! The “deal with the devil” [the same deal made at the Continental Congress between free and slave states that established the USA] was reinvigorated and reestablished with the presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan in the GOP!
Forever after, racism would become synonymous with the GOP!
However, for the fascists [wealthy elite] in the GOP, racism was always merely a means to an end. There was no real commitment by the fascist leaders in the GOP to fully transform the USA into a New Confederate States of America. That was merely political rhetoric to them, to enable them to gain the political power necessary to implement their fascist ideology. It represented to the fascists, a method to obtain the fealty and loyalty of their racist voter base.
How ironic that those most dedicated to that ascendancy of the GOP in order to enslave people of color in a resurrected Confederate States of America, will find themselves enslaved right along side those self-same people of color in a fully functional fascist state led by a full fledged fascist leader: Donald J. Trump!
For in reality, fascism cares no more about poor whites than it does about people of color. The poor, the elderly, the disabled, the infirm are all expendable for the fascist in a fascist state! For the fascist they are equally expendable during the Covid-19 pandemic, too. Thus the “urgency” of reopening the economy; the willingness to sacrifice such people as a group of “expendable people”.
Like all fascists, the GOP embraced racism for its ability to achieve their fascist goals. They never really, genuinely embraced racism. Fascists embrace GREED [Get Rich Eviscerating Everything Democratic]! Because only democracy, genuine collective democratic governance under the democratic principle of the Rule of Law represents an existential threat to fascism. Whether that fascism manifests as corporate fascism under a capitalist economic system is irrelevant to the fascist. For the fascist GREED “trumps” all other considerations!
Historically speaking, it would require the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama to solidify and codify the merger of fascism and racism within the GOP into the perfect corruption! The popular racist uprising within the GOP demanded a candidate fully capable of; fully on board with; fully RACIST!
That person emerged in the person of Donald J. Trump. The racist base of the GOP immediately recognized “one of their own” in the persona of Trump and they fully embraced him and his racism!
The question was never about whether or not Donald J. Trump is a racist. He most assuredly is a racist. Of that fact there is simply no doubt. What is emerging, though, is an ever increasing expression of Trump’s overt racism. He does not really care if we know that he is a racist.
This has led us to, not too surprisingly, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Why, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2020? What significance does Tulsa, Oklahoma have for racist America?
Tulsa, Oklahoma:
“Researchers working to locate bodies of victims from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre believe they've found at least one mass grave associated with the deadly tragedy.
The massacre, featured prominently in the HBO series"Watchmen" this year, happened when ,after analyzing three possible sites of mass graves associated with the tragedy, Scott Hammerstedt, researcher at the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, University of Oklahoma, says that all three show ground abnormalities, but one in particular shows hallmarks of a mass grave.
A White mob destroyed the 35-block "Black Wall Street"– a thriving business district in Tulsa. The number of deaths has never been confirmed, but estimates vary from about three dozen to 300 or more.
Thanks in part to the suppression of news reports at the time, the massacre received little national attention until recently,History.com reports.”
Again, it is no accident that Trump chose Tulsa, Oklahoma for the resurrection of his now infamous MAGA rallies! He is speaking loudly and clearly to the racist base of the GOP that he is still “one of you”! He fully embraces racism because without that racist base the fascist GOP cannot maintain its power and exploit its racist base to gain the political power necessary to satiate its fascist GREED [Get Rich Eviscerating Everything Democratic]!
Ironically, although Trump is genuinely racist [nurtured in that racism by his racist father Fred Trump from birth], he is first and foremost a fascist. It is wealth that “trumps” everything else for him. He has utter disdain for his racist base. He hides that disdain for them but he absolutely detests them. He does not care about them at all but he does embrace them for political purposes! He will happily enslave them in a fascist state along side those people of color he, too, hates!
In other words, the 40 year fascist path from Reagan to Trump is not accidental. It was fostered and fueled by fraud, fabulism and falsehoods from the fascists. It was always a deliberate effort designed to fully transform America into a full fledged fascist state dominated by corporate power in pursuit of profit to achieve total domination of the world. Again, GREED!
This fascist takeover of America is not merely an American phenomena. It is global in nature and extent. Once America succumbs to GREED and becomes a fully privatized corporate fascist country the rest of the world will follow suit. That has always been the goal of the global fascists!
Only the IDEA of a democracy as expressed in the American Constitutional Republic informed by and founded upon the concept of “Equal Justice under the Law” has stood against the slow march, globally speaking, towards fascism!
Will the racist rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma lead to a full fledged Civil War in America. Will it be used to marshal the forces of racism to engage in an overt, active shooting war? Will Trump use the coded message,the call to arms, implicit in the “Second Amendment solution” he advocates so openly and brazenly at rallies? Will Trump “deputize” the White Supremacist militias in America and marshal them into a private army to implement his fascist goals? Will he “federalize” them?
Apparently, Trump has decided NOT to hold his racist MAGA rally on Friday, June 19, 2020. He calls the rally a “celebration”. But, in typical Trump fashion, he leaves blank precisely what he is “celebrating”. He leaves it to everyone’s selective imagination to decide whether he intends to “celebrate” [as opposed to honor or memorialize] the memory of those murdered black human beings OR whether he intends to “celebrate” in typical Trumpian racist fashion, their murder and the mayhem that ensued in the aftermath of the mob rule.
Instead, Trump will “celebrate” on the following day, Saturday June 20, 2020. A magnanimous move on his part in his deranged mind to accommodate his racist MAGA rally!
It remains to be seen if “blood will flow” in the streets of America because the racist base is encouraged to “rise up and take back” America during the rally. Make America Great Again by transforming it into the New Confederate States of America.
Will Trump use the coded message of the “second amendment” to encourage his racist base to “take up arms” against peaceful protestors across America seeking redress of the systemic racism expressed as police brutality [murder] of innocent black human beings in America?
Will Trump use the coded racist message of “Law and Order” to try to justify the continued oppression of people of color in America?
Will Trump evoke the coded racist message of “States’ Rights” to justify the establishment of the New Confederate States of America [a traitorous Nation that took up arms against our Constitutional Union in 1860]?
Who knows!
Trump has already demonstrated his willingness, eagerness really, to betray democratic principles and ideals with his submission to/collaboration with a hostile foreign power: Russia. He has no compunction what-so-ever about engaging in anti-democratic behavior wholly destructive of democracy: most particularly the Rule of Law!
For Trump, the Rule of Law must be transformed into the “Law of the Ruler”!
It remains to be seen whether fascism or democracy will prevail! It truly is an unsettled question that must be resolved. The sooner the better! But, if the fascists win, American democracy dies and with that death the death of freedom globally will surely follow!
Hypocrisy and GREED, two hallmarks of fascism, are at work here in the USA and if those two deadly diseases are allowed to flourish democracy dies! America cannot continue to allow the GOP to put profit before people in pursuit of greed via an emphasis upon capitalism and corporate power that destroys our democratic institutions and constitutional republic.
Trump seeks to become the second President of the Confederate States of America! He seeks to utterly destroy the Rule of Law, fundamental to a democratic society wherein “Equal Justice under the Law” is not only foundational to but fundamental to the establishment of and continuation of a Constitutional Republic based upon such a democratic principle!
Effectively, we have only one more chance to remove Trump. That is with the election in 2020. Most surely Trump will do everything in his power, which is considerable, to undermine our free and fair election process.
He will engage in the most egregious election fraud including but not limited to voter suppression! He will try to use the covid-19 pandemic for that purpose too, to undermine our electoral process.
Will he win, will the Law of the Ruler supplant and replace the Rule of Law in America? Only time and our votes will tell! So, vote. Vote like your very life, democratic life, depends upon it. Because, it does!
We can no longer “enable” racism in America because it undermines our democracy. We can no longer “enable” a fascist GOP, either. Both are wholly destructive of democracy and utterly incompatible with a just society based upon the democratic principle of the Rule of Law!