Originally Posted by Ike Bana
We had lunch on Monday for the first time in a couple of years. He's originally from Karachi, got his MD there at U of Karachi, and took his psych specialty after coming to this country 30 years ago. So he's got a somewhat unique perspective, grew up Muslim, but not observant, a real political independent, who dislikes Hillary Clinton but voted for her as he had developed an opinion regarding Trump's raging malignant narcissism decades ago.
Anyway, he really tied the current situation in this country into in a nice bow over my ham and cheese pannini. He agrees that this election was not nearly as much about the economy and jobs as it was about the attempted re-emergence of white christian dominance over all aspects of the culture of this country. He specifically referred to the dominance of this in Southern states, rural western states, and in the disaffected rust belt white working class in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
And then he said something that I've been trying to articulate for the past two years now, and not succeeding. That the same white christians who are complaining about being oppressed, and being discriminated against, and being thrown under the governmental bus...are the people who have had all the advantages over brown and black skinned people, and over non-christian people since the founding.
He referred to this particular aspect of American culture as, "These people who were either too lazy, or too stupid, or too entitled, to use their advantage to actually better themselves, and who are now all pissed off that some Muslim woman in a hijab or some Mexican guy has a spot in front of them in the line for their SNAP card. They just can't tolerate the idea of somebody a little more swarthy than they are, being in line adhead of them for anything."
Yep...right on the money.
When I referred to the "re-emergence of confederates", he just frowned and nodded in agreement. And we agreed that this is less about Donald Trump than it is about this serious flaw in the culture of the country.
Poor disadvantaged white christian America...where's some of that good old racial superiority of manifest destiny when you need it, eh?
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