President Donald Trump and the Right Flank of America

--Ziauddin Choudhury
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
The paragraph above which is emblazoned in US constitution as first amendment
captures the essence of democratic rights of individuals in the United States. These
words have sustained rule of law and democracy in the US for last two hundred
and fifty years. Ironically, these rights have also given birth to a variety of groups
and cults that range from supporters of civil liberties to white supremacists, from
worshippers of voodoo to atheists, from conformists to nihilists. In a word, the
constitution has supported expression of ones thoughts and ideas in any form so
long as these do not conflict with rights of another group of citizens or the law of
the land.
Such freedom has also given rise to Alt Right, abbreviated nomenclature for
Alternative Right political movement that grew in recent years. We all became
familiar with this expression and movement in conjunction with the appearance of
Donald Trump in US political scene. The movement, considered to be a subset of
the countrys conservative politics, is so much in the farthest extreme of
conservatism that it is regarded as a rebellion from mainstream conservatism,
which is the base of the Republican Party. This is not just because of its rejection
of establishment right politics but because of the kind of people it has attracted to
its fold. It has within its ambit not just people who are ethnocentric and antiglobalists, but also other fringe groups who are blatantly white supremacists and
anti-immigrant.
The United States has had a long history of racial discrimination that it officially
overcame with the passing of Civil Rights Act in 1964 after a prolonged political
struggle. The legislation was not a unanimous act between the two major political
parties or the contestants at large, but at least the Act showed the world that the US
had come to recognize the race based division of the country and ended it by
giving all citizens equality irrespective of color and ethnicity.

People who had opposed this legislation were not necessarily defined by political
parties they belonged to. They opposed because they thought time was not ripe for
allowing the black minorities the same rights as themselves. They opposed because
they were fearful of creeping black emergence and dominance in politics of the
country.
Unfortunately, however, racial integration that was probably one of the motives of
the Act never really happened in this country. Elements both on the right or wrong
side of the Civil Rights Act knew that. But all hoped that the Act would open the
way for the marginalized communities of the country to move forward and be
equal partners, economically and politically.
The Civil Rights Act could not change the economic fate of the black community,
but it was able to foster in the country a culture of tolerance and civil behavior
toward the minorities. Gradually not only discrimination on the basis of race was
outlawed in housing and work places, use of language in official parlance and in
media derisive of race, color or ethnicity also became taboo in later years. The
United States tried to become a role model in establishing in norms of behavior
toward all races and communities, but also toward other groups that identified
themselves differently from the mainstream because of sexual orientation. The
words politically correct became guidelines in conduct of public as well as
corporate business. That is until the appearance of Donald Trump in the political
scene.
But to draw a historical line of the death of political correctness with Donald
Trump alone would perhaps be an exaggeration. Political correctness or civility in
political conduct has a lot to do with the overall changes in a society. The society
would be tolerant and mutually respectful when all sections of the society are
reasonably happy with status quo and no one group considers the other to be a
threat to its existence. Unfortunately however, without real integration this
remained as good behavior or politically correct behavior that could break down
whenever the threat returned. And this happened in the last few years when the
conservatives drove some of their own to the extreme right as the white middle
class felt they are being let down by their own political partythe Republicans.

Several factors could explain this right ward shift. For much of last sixty years the
United States had been able to provide economic stability to its people and
leadership to the world economy, attracting millions from the world to its shores.
But with growth in economy, economic power, and immigration also came other
changes that the average American could grasp only lately.
The first change was in the demography. With increased immigration, both legal
and illegal, the face of America started to change. In the fifties white America
accounted for 75% of the population, the blacks accounting for a mere 12%, and
Hispanics and Asians accounting for the rest. Today, white American share has
dwindled to 65%, while Hispanics alone have jumped to 13% leaving black
Americans where they were before. For the first time, America's racial and ethnic
minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group, the government said
Thursday.
Along with this change also came the economic downturn of the average of white
blue collar worker. Global shifts of manufacturing from US to elsewhere left
millions jobless. For many others, their income remained tethered to levels many
years before. In their rantings against Government and Corporations, these luckless
millions in Middle America pointed fingers at the new immigrants and the
establishment politicians in Washington.
This was a ground ripe for the rise of the elements who had been blaming the
minorities and the new comers in the country for the ills in the country. To their
mind the establishment politicians had sacrificed the interests of the whites in their
zeal to pacify the minorities and in establishing the so-called equal opportunities
for all. The white supremacists group gave out a rallying cry to stand up and
oppose the marginalization of the whites. The disgruntled whites came in droves to
support those neo-conservatives who promised to stand for them and bring in a
new order that return to them their old America along with jobs and economic
opportunities. Donald Trump was one such leader who gave them hope and they
voted him as their next President.
Today Donald Trump has taken the reins of the government heralding in his own
words a time to make America great again. It is difficult to say whether these
reins will return America to the hands of the extreme right with their slogans of

nativism, ethnocentricity, and end to liberal politics in the country. But what is
certain that it will be difficult for any new group to reverse the demographic
changes that have taken so far, or to deny any group their democratic rights to elect
their leaders whichever be their ethnic identity.
For now, the US and the world will wait and see how many of the promises that the
new President had in his campaign to woo his supporters he will actually
implement, and how many of these will actually be for the larger interest of this
great country and the world at large.