Vantage Point Vignette
Dr. Ron Daniels, President, IBW-ACTION
How is it that one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history is so close, neck and neck, a virtual tie after all the ugliness, hatred, foul, ignorant and indecent behavior of Donald Trump? The answer is unpleasant, but simple: There are millions of “Americans” who covertly or openly believe in or support the underlying white supremacist tenets of Trump’s Make American Great Again movement, MAGAISM. Unfortunately, tragically these open and closet adherents of MAGAISM are willing to forgo their economic well-being and the prospect of a better quality of life to fight for a future where the hegemony of a culture of white supremacy is assured.
David Brooks, the conservative columnist for the New York Times made this observation during one of his recent weekly appearances on The PBS News Hour. In summary he suggested that support for Vice-President Kamala Harris was not budging significantly among White working classes voters in battle ground states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania despite the spectacular job generating success of the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Bill passed by the Biden-Harris administration. He concluded that this was because for large numbers of White working-class voters the most important political priorities are “cultural issues” not jobs.
A similar reality also surfaced in the failure of the Teamsters and Postal Workers Unions to endorse Kamala Harris despite the fact that the Biden-Harris Administration saved the Teamsters Union’s pension fund and have acted very favorably toward the Postal Workers Union. Both unions withheld making an endorsement because internal polling showed strong support for Donald Trump among their rank-and-file memberships.
Make no mistake about it, the November 5th election is clearly about the unfinished struggle for the heart and soul, the very character of the nation we call the United States of America. And, the not so subtle, ultra-rightwing authoritarian Project 2025 is the de facto Official Manual, the Policy Manifesto of Trump’s MAGA movement; a movement hell-bent on turning back the clock to the good old days of America as a White man’s land dressed up in 21st century verbiage and disguise. MAGAISM in all of its evilness, ugliness and poisonous policy prescriptions is a danger to the Constitution, danger to democracy and danger to America! Hence it is not hyperbole to declare that this election is one of the most consequential in history of this nation.
This cold reality is frightening, but all is not loss. As the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the architect of the Rainbow Coalition movement would say, we must “keep hope alive.” In that spirit, our challenge and charge is to mobilize and organize a righteous Rainbow Wave of voters committed to march on ballot boxes to achieve a resounding victory over Trump and MAGAISM; A gigantic Rainbow Wave, a tsunami spurred on by the principle and conviction that America must and will become a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, non-discriminatory, political and economic democracy.
As the “conscience of the nation,” people of African descent, Black people have a foundational role to play at the center and forefront of this Constitution saving, Democracy saving, America rescuing powerful Rainbow Wave. As Rev. Jackson once prophesized, “the hands that picked cotton, can pick Presidents.” That prophesy has been fulfilled but there are still more mountains to claim and ceilings to crack. People of African descent, Black people, the rejected stones will be the cornerstone of the new America which must become — but only when the current cancer of MAGAISM is defeated. So, with less than a month left before election day, sisters and brothers get-up, rise-up and take the lead at the pinnacle of the Rainbow Wave that can and must rescue the Constitution, Democracy and America! Keep Hope Alive!
