Before Donald Trump took the oath of office, Washington’s chattering classes were abound with speculation about how the then president-elect might govern. As a secret moderate? As a foil to Congressional Republicans? As an authoritarian? Less than a week into his term, the new president made his intentions clear — he plans to govern as he campaigned. The problem for the American people is that candidate Trump’s campaign promises flowed from bias, stereotype, and “alternative facts.” As Slate’s Jamelle Bouie wrote:
Presidents, in other words, keep their promises…. Above everything else, Trump promised to bring the power of the federal state to bear against the domestic enemies of the people, defined in explicitly racial terms. From his perch in the Oval Office, Trump would “protect” the American people from Muslim refugees, “dangerous” Hispanic immigrants, and groups like Black Lives Matter. On this, Trump was consistent. This wasn’t mere rhetoric; this was a set of serious promises to deal with literal threats. And this week, the newly minted president has begun tackling them, one by one, in rapid succession.
As abhorrent as Trump’s actions may be, they’re not anomalous. To the contrary, they are part of a long history; one that finds the United States repeatedly subverting its ideals of broadly shared freedom and opportunity in the service of maintaining a hierarchy that can only exist through oppression and exclusion. Over the next four years, then, it won’t be enough to fight mounting injustices. We must also ruthlessly identify and eliminate ways that this hierarchy already exists within our policies and institutions and embrace an alternative model of policymaking that honors and thrives on diversity instead of marginalizes it.
[For more of this story, written by Rachel Black, go to https://psmag.com/what-happene...42167445c#.hl2oaks1x]
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