White Noise

Trump is a racist. I won't beat around the bush. The only positive thing I can say about the man's character, as far as we're able to get to know his character, is that he's not trying, or able to hide his true feelings about the things he's so clearly passionate about. I mean, if you manage to tweet dozens of times about the same subject or people, and if the next tweet is even more outraged than the previous, it's obvious something touched you deep inside.

_{source: Max Pixel}

But Trump is just a symptom of a much larger problem here; extreme right wing nationalists are gaining popularity all over the western world. Where talking about the threat of a new fascism was first confined to the largely unregulated space of media on the internet, now it's even discussed in the mainstream. White nationalism is rearing its ugly head all over the place. Trump is the outcome of a development that has been going on for, well, forever actually. Remember that whatever we're capable of as individuals, we can do in an amplified form as a collective of like-minded souls; if you've ever seen a mob acting as one person during a sports event for example, you've got an idea of what I'm talking about here.

In social psychology (the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual) there's this theory called "scapegoat theory", which is described as the tendency to explain failure or misdeeds by blaming others than yourself, in order to maintain one's positive self-image. To make a quick link back to America and Trump here; there's no shortage of a positive self-image in both cases. In America's case there's even a term for it, American Exceptionalism, in Trump's case it's just plain old narcissism, but both exhibit signs of having a delusion of grandeur. Trump repeats, ad nauseam, how good he is, and how his plans are "the best", when in reality he's just doing what's good for himself. This character trait prevents him from ever admitting he's wrong about anything.

Saying that scapegoating is a well defined psychological phenomenon and very human, is not the same as condoning it or trying to justify it. I've said it before, and I'll repeat it here: just because it's natural doesn't make it good or desirable. Rape occurs in nature, in many species besides mankind, but that doesn't mean we have to condone rape. That we act self-interested or even greedy in some circumstances, and that greed is a natural part of our psychological make-up due to how we evolved, doesn't mean we have to condone greed or selfishness, or even worse, build an entire economy around it and glorify the greediest among us. Much of what makes us special, what makes us human, is our ability to rise above our natural or primitive urges, to rise above lust and fear. Unfortunately there's a lot of power and money to be gained by keeping lust and fear alive.

Those who capitalize on our tendency to scapegoat are always blaming the misfortunes of one large section of the lower classes on another small section; this is divide and rule by the book. The most successful scapegoating populists are the ones who also manage to create around themselves a cult of personality, mostly through heavy use of the mass medium of their age. Hitler used tightly staged and strictly scripted spectacles, Trump manages to be a spectacle all by himself. I don't remember who said this but it describes the Donald to a T: without the circus around him, he would be the lonely clown. A racist clown, with extra white make-up.

It's no coincidence that the rise of racism coincides with severe economical recession; we've in no way recovered from the crash of 2008 and only made it worse by increasing debts even faster than before. It's a testament to the success of the fear-mongering that Mexicans and Muslims take the blame in America under Trump, when it's Trump's social class who is to blame for not just this, but all economical recessions. The Mexicans didn't steal your jobs. The Muslims aren't raping "your" women. I know it's no use to say that, but I have to. I also know that some of you may have voted for Trump, and that this may come across as a personal attack, for which I'm sorry. But I don't blame you for voting for him or any other extreme right wing nationalist, as they are so good at misdirecting your fears to protect themselves. And I know, or at least hope that the large majority of Trump voters aren't racist, but just deeply disappointed by how you've been treated by the powers that be, and that your hope was that Trump would finally upset the status quo. I hope four years is enough to realize that will never happen under Trump.

There are several definitions of the term "white noise"; in signal processing it's a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, often heard as the "sh" noise while listening to the radio (if people still do that), sometimes it's used as a colloquialism to describe a backdrop of ambient sound, such as the murmur heard in a room full of quietly talking people, or the steady sound of waves breaking on a coastline or other natural backdrop sounds that are often used to relax or to fall asleep, and "white noise" is also used in political speech by including unneeded information to mask a point they don't want to be readily noticed. We've reached that stage now; racism, white nationalism in particular, has become "white noise," constantly audible in the background, sometimes unrecognizable until we strain our ears to listen very carefully.

_{Trump Tweets Racist Attacks on Elijah Cummings Amid Investigations: A Closer Look}

With Trump we don't have to strain our ears nor our brains to hear and understand how little he thinks about certain segments of "his" people. But there's an army of less explicit opinion makers in all media who have a large influence on their large followings. Tucker Carlson is an obvious example. But what about Sam Harris? Or Jordan Peterson? Or Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad on YouTube), Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro? I know I shouldn't heap all of them on the same shitty pile because they differ a lot in their tactics, and the degree to which they conform to the ideologies of the alt-right, but all of these gentlemen have a large part of their fan-base in alt-right circles. Some of them are more intelligent about it and have mastered the art of using white noise in their discourse, like Peterson and Harris. Some of them just manage to sound intellectual while speaking nonsense, like Shapiro and Benjamin, and some are just crazy, like Jones and, to a slightly lesser extent, Trump. With Trump moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., the White House has never before been more aptly named.

It's a sad thing to conclude that the "shining city on a hill" as described by Ronald Reagan in his 1988 State of the Union, has become a symbol of the opposite. Here's the conclusion to that speech:

At the start of this decade, I suggested that we live in equally momentous times, that it is up to us now to decide whether our form of government would endure and whether history still had a place of greatness for a quiet, pleasant, greening land called America. Not everything has been made perfect in 7 years, nor will it be made perfect in seven times 70 years, but before us, this year and beyond, are great prospects for the cause of peace and world freedom.

It means, too, that the young Americans I spoke of 7 years ago, as well as those who might be coming along the Virginia or Maryland shores this night and seeing for the first time the lights of this Capital City—the lights that cast their glow on our great halls of government and the monuments to the memory of our great men—it means those young Americans will find a city of hope in a land that is free.

We can be proud that for them and for us, as those lights along the Potomac are still seen this night signaling as they have for nearly two centuries and as we pray God they always will, that another generation of Americans has protected and passed on lovingly this place called America, this shining city on a hill, this government of, by, and for the people.
_{source: The American Presidency Project}

Now how's that for a COMPLETELY different sort of white noise? Of course, these words were spoken in a time when the Republican party started the heavy deregulation of the economy, together with Margaret Thatcher in England, that ultimately led to the disenfranchisement of the western middle class, slowly but surely fertilizing the soil from which we now reap the sour fruits. Or clowns.

I'd like to repeat that none of this is aimed at Americans, even when I realize this may not be easy to digest for some of you, my American brothers and sisters. This comes from a place of concern for you as well as the rest of the world and all it's inhabitants. There's a simple truth overriding all our personal opinions; we have nothing on this planet but each other. There is no other home for us than this planet, no other source of energy than the Sun we all see rise every day. We're all from somewhere else, we're all immigrants; it's sad to see that many American white supremacists have forgotten so readily and quickly their European ancestry, some of them only second or third generation, like Trump himself. But the overriding truth is that we're so much more the same than we're different, not only physically, but also spiritually and psychologically.

We're all capable of becoming our best and becoming our worst self, and we all shift between the two constantly, and we're constantly influencing each other and nudging each other to one or the other side. It's our joint responsibility to at least try to nudge each other toward our best self; this post is me trying to take that responsibility, and warn against the rise of what I've called "white noise" on this occasion. What you look like does not define who you are, nor does your gender, your ethnicity, your race or ideological affinity. How you're looked upon does and how you look at other human beings does. How you talk to and or about other people does. You can't choose where you're born, what color your eyes, hair and skin are, neither can any of your fellow human beings; we can only choose how we see each other, how we treat each other and how we speak to each other. These are the choices that determine if we can coexist or not. So please, brothers and sisters, choose wisely...

In closing, I'd like to introduce you to the below linked video. It's completely unrelated to America and Trump, but instead shows how racism and fear of immigrants is promoted. It's a simple map of Germany on which all incidents involving migrant crimes are marked, and if we look at that map, it's immediately clear that immigrants are indeed a problem; the map is so full that the shape of Germany can hardly be recognized anymore. The map reinforces the message carried on "white noise" that immigrants are rapists, terrorists and thieves, and that their number is becoming so large that whites should indeed fear "the Great Replacement" or "White Genocide"... Watch the video to see why you should never believe such dangerous myths.

_{Source Check: The XY Einzelfall Map}

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