Martin Luther King Explains Why Trump's Biggest Victim Is Actually His Own Base

[TomCADem]

I know there is a lot of anger at the support that Trump continues to draw from a diminishing minority of the U.S. population. Although Tump's support has diminished due in large part to his clear incompetence, Trump continues to draw support from a rabid base that he caters to with increasingly racist appeals.

The question is why does this work? Even if a person is a racist, why would they support someone who has mishandled a pandemic and eagerly acts against U.S. interests in favor of his own?

The answer is that Trump appeals to what MLK would call a Trump supporter's drum major instinct, the desire "to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first." Trump is not offering health care. Trump is not offering economic security. What Trump is offering is the validation that his supporters are innately superior to everyone else of a different race or background. Even better, Trump offers a scapegoat that America's ills are caused by people who not-white whether they are Mexican immigrants, BLM protesters, educated professional women, or Asians who are accused of spreading COVID-19.

Of course, as Germany experience, if you continue to blame all your problems on other people. this ultimately leads to a "final solution" of genocide to eliminate other people. For example, the Nazis did not originally advocate for the genocide of Jews. Instead. the Nazis originally pushed for the resettlement and relocation of Jews out of Europe.

This is why we need to combat Trump and his message of hate and blame. We need to educate, including his own supporters, that Trump's message of hate not only oppresses the objects of the hate, but it serves to oppress his own supporters who are losing their jobs and losing their lives blinded by Trump's message that they are members of some super race and that they need to protect their way of life, which is built around systemic racism.

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/drum-major-instinct-sermon-delivered-ebenezer-baptist-church

The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one's thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he's a little better than that person who doesn't have it. And that's the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.

Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and we've seen it happen so often—tragic race prejudice. Many who have written about this problem—Lillian Smith used to say it beautifully in some of her books. And she would say it to the point of getting men and women to see the source of the problem. Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first. (Make it plain, today, ‘cause I’m against it, so help me God) And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council. And so God being the charter member means that everybody who's in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity to man.

The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I'm in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, "Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes." And I said, "You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march."

Now that's a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can't hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen)

[fierywoman]

1. I'm becoming 24/7 furious with so-called Christians who don't live the Golden Rule in their every

waking moment and the so-called Patriots who don't live All men are created equal in their every waking moment.

[raging moderate]

2. Maybe not the worst victims, but yes, victims.

This was also true in the old slavery system. The rich slave-owners used the wealth they obtained from slavery to keep the poor whites from escaping their bad living conditions. And there were other immoral rich people who did not mind the extra riches they obtained by cooperating with these vicious monsters.

[TomCADem]

3. Miami Herald Article: The Confederacy was a con job on whites. And still is.

During the Civil War, most Southerners did not own slaves. Yet, they were convinced to fight in the war "to preserve their way of life," even though that way of life allow rich Southerners to undercut and suppress their wages through the use of slave labor as explained in this article:

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article136721193.html

My ancestor Canna Hyman and his two sons did own land and fought under that flag. A note from our family history says: “Someone came for them while they were plowing one day. They put their horses up and all three went away to the War and only one son, William, came back.”

Like Canna, most Southerners didn’t own slaves. But they were persuaded to risk their lives and limbs for the right of a few to get rich as Croesus from slavery. For their sacrifices and their votes, they earned two things before and after the Civil War. First, a very skinny slice of the immense Southern pie. And second, the thing that made those slim rations palatable then and now: the shallow satisfaction of knowing that blacks had no slice at all.

How did the plantation owners mislead so many Southern whites?

They managed this con job partly with a propaganda technique that will be familiar to modern Americans, but hasn’t received the coverage it deserves in our sesquicentennial celebrations. Starting in the 1840s wealthy Southerners supported more than 30 regional pro-slavery magazines, many pamphlets, newspapers and novels that falsely touted slave ownership as having benefits that would – in today’s lingo – trickle down to benefit non-slave owning whites and even blacks. The flip side of the coin of this old-is-new trickle-down propaganda is the mistaken notion that any gain by blacks in wages, schools or health care comes at the expense of the white working class.

[Midnight Writer]

5. Today our corporate powers convince poor voters to vote against their own interests.

And don't get me started on how our churches fit into this.

[TomCADem]

6. I Don't Think That Is The Same Though...

...for example, MLK himself was a minister. The issue about racism is that by enlisting poor whites in the oppression of minorities, they are also participating in their own oppression. This was most evident when non-slave owning whites fought for the confederacy during the Civil War at the behest of rich slave owners.

[Thekaspervote]

4. His support is waiting because the drum majorette is no longer out in front

Being noted as a loser and a quitter