The New Phrenology

Look, white people are obviously a problem. I mean, these are the same people who invented global warming and the closed-loop epistemological and social space necessary to deny the science that proves it exists. We gave the world modern industrialization on a catastrophically ubiquitous scale as well as an unearned (because unearnable) sense of asocial individual entitlement so powerful it privileges subjective preference (your own personal truth) over objective, testable and repeatable facts.

We're not responsible for all the bad stuff, though. We practiced a lot of chattel slavery up until shockingly recently, but it's not like we invented it. All we did was use some principles of improvised pseudo-science to systematize it into a program of genocide centered around the brand-newly invented idea of separate "races." Or was it a happy coincidence that this breakthrough in anthropological, historical and biological classification determined that the white "civilization" was the superior one? See the above paragraph re: "asocial individual entitlement."

For those of us really, really invested in the White People Are Magic movement--an admittedly powerful thing that has produced very notable results like Wonder bread, ABBA and the United States of America--having a black president has proven to be... problematic. But not all on it's own of course, no. That would be openly racist. And if there's anything we know about just about all white people it's that, even though racism clearly and objectively exists, none of us when asked are going to admit any personal racial bias, feeling, instinct or reflex. The problem isn't that Obama is black, it's just that he "doesn't seem like he's one of us" or that he has an "outsider's perspective" or that he's "actively plotting the dismantling of American democracy from within, like a cancer made of AIDS transmitted via Syrian refugee babies."

Well, that's not all true. There are some of us who will happily admit to a racist idea. These people are called "assholes." If you're a white person, you know who they are. They're your uncle. Or maybe your otherwise honey-sweet grandma. Or about 14% of your facebook friends, mostly people you knew in high school for whom things didn't quite worked out like they'd hoped. Sorry, Tyler, I guess the ability to shotgun store-label beers didn't translate into a marketable skill as easily as we'd all assumed.

There's an even smaller percentage of white people who are not only not afraid to give voice to their resentments, but are standing by. They're the Turner Diaries fuckheads who've been hanging out, waiting for the signal to start the inevitable race war that will FINALLY cleanse the continent of the mongrels. There have been loads of false starts, most notably the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, where instead of the purifying fire of racial conflict, they instead got exactly the kind of reaction you'd expect from positioning a bomb right outside a daycare when you plan to blow up an office building.

Some of them are stepping out of the shadows now because, again, they believe they hear the call. They're on radio shows spewing bullshit and openly physically and verbally assaulting non-whites who have the gall to be present in their designated places of public apoplexy and holding open rallies in the streets of the city most famous for housing Disneyland.

It turns out, though, that their illiteracy is more than just literal. It extends to their ability to read the cultural and political moment. They're emboldened by the candidacy of Donald Trump, which makes some kind of sense on the face of it, but that's only if you believe for one second that there's any kind of sincerity behind what he's selling. And that's a critical word there: selling. He doesn't have policy specifics or budget numbers or anything else because he's not a politician. He's not a policy wonk. He's the guy who is convinced that putting his name on anything automatically raises its value, a benefit he would now like to extend to America itself. But the details aren't pronounced and then chased, they're negotiated. How are we going to build a giant, impregnable wall between us and Mexico? Fuck that, we'll let the Jew lawyers hash that out after we have a handshake agreement in principle. But that's waaaaay down the line. Right now we're at the public part of the negotiation. Where we start with the strongest possible version of a position in order to recontextualize (or just "soften") the real thing we want when we finally get around to proposing it, behind closed doors. First, we'll get as many eyes looking at us at once, without regard for who they are. And we'll do that by saying anything at any time to any crowd, without a lot of thought to the social impact because we're after a very specific outcome: to win. To close the deal. And the presidency is where you can be as scattershot and broad as you want because closing the one big deal (the election) closes the aaaaaaall the little deals about 90% of the way. The last 10%, that's what the rest of the government is for, the Senate and the Senate's little brother (whatever that one is called) and the Supreme Court.

In the end, though, what's Donald Trump going to do for the cause of white supremacy? First you have to consider what white supremacists can do for him. Can they get him elected? Hardly. Can they contribute? Not these broke-ass white-trash motherfuckers. Nah. They can be goosed into drawing eyeballs, for zero cost, in the chaotic high-stakes days of national primary slates. And that's about it. As usual, they've misunderstood the moment as badly as it is possible to misunderstand it. They can try to raise the banner of the race war now if they want to, in their perceived moment of national preeminence, but the fact is, when the "race war" comes down, know who they're going to mostly be fighting? Other white people, like me. See, we're fickle like that. Can't be counted on for shit.