The past and the present are often similar but never identical, which is why it’s said that history doesn’t repeat itself but does rhyme. All too often, though, the result has been some truly woeful poetry. The repeated and intentional incitement of racial division for selfish purposes is a case in point.

In the American South in 1890, the white merchant/planter elite presided over a thoroughly rigged economic/political system. To maintain their profits, for decades they had literally schemed to keep the majority, white as well as black, mired in low-wage poverty. But among ordinary southerners of both races, there was talk of setting aside their racial biases to join in challenging the corrupt regime.

The elite, of course, fought back. To undermine any hope of bi-racial cooperation, the reigning Wizards of our downhome Oz conjured up a smoke-and-mirrors extravaganza of racism. With premeditation and malice aforethought, these fine southern gentlemen inflamed racial hatred and then institutionalized that hatred in law, creating the brutally violent system of “Jim Crow.”

Significantly, the primary targets of this power play were the ordinary whites who were deceived into scapegoating blacks, and therefore, most importantly, into shifting blame away from the still-powerful white elite. In other words, as the great southern historian C. Vann Woodward put it, the real purpose of state-mandated white supremacy was to determine “which whites would be supreme.” And, too, which would not. Poor whites got a gift tied with the fancy bow of status, but inside found only a box of crumbs. The rank stupidities of Jim Crow — some petty, some vicious — would stunt the South’s economy for generations.

Though it may be true that tolerance can’t be legislated, as seen here it is undeniably true that racial intolerance has been legislated. Many times. It didn’t begin or end in 1890. Frequently in our history “irrational” racism has been rationally nurtured and manipulated as a means to enhance the position of the few by dividing-and-conquering the many. In fact for most whites, white supremacy has been counterproductive. However, having been repeatedly persuaded to conspire in their own self-destruction, it has been the longest running con job in White America’s history. Unfortunately, its time-travelling medicine show is still running,…

Election of 2016. Donald Trump. Same old con, new Gucci loafers. How did this happen?

In our age of genuine discontent over job-loss to automation and globalization, rising income inequality, and elite cronyism, Trump spoke to these anxieties effectively in the language of national renewal. But from the beginning, it was plain that his imagined Great-Again-America had a distinctly pale face. As an agenda, he wholesaled a snake oil elixir of simplistic fixes and broadly-based bigotry, all launched with his slyly but spitefully racist birtherism hoax. No, not all who voted for him are racists, but it is indisputable that the stoking of racial/ethnic resentments was central to his rise to power. Assuredly, over the next four years it will remain the favored weapon in his disinformation arsenal.

Already, his “forgotten men and women” are being betrayed by corporate cronyism and nepotism on an epic scale, by his kowtowing before the gangster/plutocrat Vladimir Putin, by the emerging plan to slash Social Security and Medicare, and by promised trickle-down tax cuts for the rich guaranteed to result once again in trickle-up wealth for the ever-richer rich. The rhyme of 1890 resounds with trickle-down white supremacy.

There is an alternative. What if, for example, when “legislating tolerance,” we add that tolerance can actually be in the mutual self-interest of the white working class and ethnic minorities? For example, when the dead hand of Jim Crow was finally lifted in the 1960’s, the South’s economy was stimulated, and both whites and blacks benefitted. The civil rights reforms weren’t whites’ charity for a needy minority. They were morally essential, and sound business for all.

So, the con can and must end. This time we haven’t empowered just another local demagogue. A President Trump is a twittering, vulgarian Bilbo who has traded his red suspenders for H-bombs. He is dangerously unfit for his high office. At long last, America, it’s really, truly time to call out the con man’s con.
Jim Wiggins is a retired history instructor at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Natchez.