Opinion | ‘The Lowest White Man’ | NYT

Updated 2 years ago

Alex Grey Obama

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/trump-immigration-white-supremacy.html

In addition to learning the value of moderation, the silver lining to getting old is realizing history doesn’t repeat itself, but that it often rhymes.

“As President Lyndon B. Johnson said in the 1960s to a young Bill Moyers: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Trump’s supporters are saying to us, screaming to us, that although he may be the “lowest white man,” he is still better than Barack Obama, the “best colored man.”

In a way, Donald Trump represents white people’s right to be wrong and still be right. He is the embodiment of the unassailability of white power and white privilege.

To abandon him is to give up on the pact that America has made with its white citizens from the beginning: The government will help to underwrite white safety and success, even at the expense of other people in this country, whether they be Native Americans, African-Americans or new immigrants.”

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