Birth Of MARA

Now that we're approaching the third day of the second impeachment of America's 45th president, the first ever to be impeached twice, I'd like to briefly revisit the day that got this trial started.

That day wasn't January 6th 2021. It was not when hundreds or thousands of his crazed supporters stormed the Capitol on his orders to "stop the steal". No, it was the first time Trump expressed his support for the blatant lie that Barack Obama wasn't born in America. This issue had come up in 2008 during the Presidential campaign, and eventually garnered such wide support among regular Americans and public figures that it was given its own word: "birtherism". When we now look up that word in Google search, we find in the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries that "Trump's first big contribution to national politics was his support for birtherism." Birtherism is the absurd claim that President Barack Obama hails from Kenya, not Hawaii, and thus serves as some sort of illegal alien president. Trump, as well as some major pundits at the Fox "news" network, was a prominent purveyor of this racist lie, and right then and there the fascism that culminated in the January 6th events was made visible. This support for birtherism was the point at which civilized society should have shut the door on Donald Trump, but instead he was allowed to run for president. And he won...

“Birtherism means forever being a foreigner in your own country, forever having to prove you are worthy of the air you’ve been blessed to breathe, forever having to get the approval of white men, which can be taken from you in an instant — a reality that dates back to the antebellum period — no matter what you’ve accomplished, no matter how hard you’ve worked, no matter how much you’ve complied with the demands of a world that forever sees you as suspect until proven innocent, an innocence that has to be proven again and again and again in place after place and situation beyond situation.”
_{source: The Undefeated}

For people to believe this absurd birtherism lie, they had to somehow want to believe it, and the fact that so many did (and still do), is a sobering and frightening realization. Looking back, we could have predicted that much of Trump's support base would consist of white supremacists and racists, people for whom the very idea that a black man could be their president was an insult. This shows a level of obvious ans unapologetic racism that would deny someone the presidency based on the color of his skin, and can't be disguised with the feeble attempt of questioning the validity of his birth-certificate.

Another milestone in the acceptance of a complete bigot as the nation's President was the "access Hollywood tape." I'm sure you all remember how Trump bragged about how he's a star, and that as a star you can do anything with beautiful women, like grabbing them by the pussy; watch the above linked video to refresh your memory if you don't remember the base misogyny displayed by the then future president. This should have disqualified him for the second time, but somehow it was eventually disregarded and hand-waved away as innocent male locker-room banter. Somehow, America has millions of people who yearn for a return to times when they could be openly racist and wives stayed at home, cooked dinner and took care of the kids. MAGA is MARA; Make America Racist Again. This, I realize, is also no surprise for a country that was settled by white Europeans who murdered the indigenous people and waged war over slavery.

Trump's entire presidency was spent dog-whistling to racists and white supremacists, all the while building a cult of the leader that arises when a country's leader uses the techniques of propaganda, the big lie, spectacle, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Note that these are the hallmarks of fascism and authoritarian fascist leadership; and on January 6th Trump ordered his foot-soldiers to stop the unpatriotic hoodlums in the Capitol from stealing the election their Great Leader had rightly won. After years of spreading the Great Lie, starting in 2008, Trump's followers believed nothing and no one but His Words, not even Fox "news" was good enough for them anymore, and they stormed the Capitol while Trump gleefully watched them do his bidding...

This impeachment trial won't amount to anything, but it has to be done. Trump won't be convicted because most Republicans have already announced that they'll vote against it; the Republican Party has become and still is the Trump Party. Not that they're all racists, but they know that 75 million Americans voted for Trump and they're afraid to lose their support. What Trump has awakened in America will not be easily put to sleep again; Trump is gone, but Trumpism will linger around for some time to come. And that's why this impeachment has to be done; America needs to be confronted with this ugly recent history, with it almost succumbing to fascism. And we'll have to deal with it, with the first step being to admit to how deep this problem of latent racism is seeded in America's culture, politics and law enforcement. It needs to be done, even if Trump doesn't get the conviction he deserves.

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