Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump denounced all the nations of Africa, plus Haiti, El Salvador and by implication other countries, as “shitholes”  whose people should not be allowed to immigrate to the United States.

To us in the Communist Party USA, the only mild surprise is the bluntness and vulgarity with which Trump expressed himself.  After just under a year in power, Trump has made it absolutely clear that his views, policies and actions are based on racist ideas of white supremacy and a xenophobic hatred of most of the nations and peoples of the world.

The statement came in the context of a meeting among Trump and leaders of his Republican Party and the opposition Democratic Party, on the subject of immigration.  Earlier, Trump had announced the cancellation of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program.  This program was created by President Obama in 2012 to make it possible for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minor children to stay and work here without fear of deportation.   Also, Trump has now announced the phasing out of another program, Temporary Protected Status, which has been helpful to Haitian, Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and other immigrant groups.

Starting on Wednesday, Trump and the legislative leaders had been meeting to craft legislation that would protect the DACA beneficiaries.  Treating these young people as hostages to their right-wing policy agenda, Trump and the Republicans were demanding agreement that the “wall” to keep out immigrants be built on the U.S./Mexico border, and that immigration policy be changed in such a way as to sharply reduce the possibility of entry by people from poor, non-European countries.  The  legislative agreement is supposed to be finalized by January 19, or else it is possible that there won’t be enough votes to pass the national budget, in which case the government must shut down all but its emergency operations.

In the past, Trump and his allies have claimed that their wish to crack down on immigrants was based on considerations of protecting the country against terrorism and crime.  Many suspected that this was a cover story and that a big part of the government agenda was based on racial and ethnic animosity.  For example, Trump’s attorney-general, Jefferson Davis Sessions, had been quoted as saying, before he was appointed to the post, that people from the Dominican Republic are useless and should not be allowed in the country.  Trump, in his days as a real estate magnate, was sued for racial discrimination in housing.  And the whole 2016 presidential campaign featured repeated racist and xenophobic statements by Trump, including his continued promotion, against all evidence, of the idea that President Obama was not born in the United States.

Trump himself played a major role in re-energizing openly racist and fascist movements.   His failure to unequivocally condemn racist speech and violent hooliganism, for example after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia last August, was one more evidence of this attitude.

Another example is the horrible failure of Trump’s administration to properly aid hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico.

Trump’s statement on Thursday plainly shows the degree to which racism and white supremacy are intrinsic to his thinking and his government’s policy.   This represents a clear danger to democracy, working-class unity, social justice and even world peace.

It becomes more and more evident that the retrograde attitudes shown by Trump and his allies are not aligned with the values of the great majority of the people of the United States. All people of conscience should now join with the labor movement, with African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian American, women’s and LGBT organizations and other democratic forces to repudiate Trump, his policies and his party, and to work for their early exit from power.

The year 2018 sees elections for the whole of the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate and for many state governorships and other posts.  The senators and representatives from the Republican Party have, by their actions, made it possible for Trump to carry out policies so obviously based on racism and white supremacy.  We call for a concentrated focus on getting out the vote nationwide to defeat Trump and his congressional allies.

Registering, educating and mobilizing voters as well as participating actively in the many mass demonstrations and rallies that will be taking place all over the country are essential steps in defeating Trump, the Republicans and the noxious things they represent. For this to advance, we have to fight hard to turn back the multi-faceted efforts by the right to suppress the vote, especially among African-American and other minority people.  The objective of these widespread “vote suppression” efforts, which include imposing difficult restrictions on voting procedures and gerrymandering (manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts to minimize the impact of the minority vote) is to stop the demographic shifts of the electorate and thus consolidate white majority rule at all levels. Legislative action to defend the Dreamers, the TPS recipients and all other sections of the population now targeted for attack by Trump and his allies and followers has to be a major focus also.

Donald Trump and his allies and enablers have shown themselves once more to be totally unfit for public office.  Let us work to get them out of there!

Photo: Facebook

Comments