"Dear Mr Trump..." - An Avaaz Open Letter

Donald Trump 

Dear friends,

Donald Trump just used his giant Twitter following to give the extremist far-right "Britain First" global glory, retweeting their Islamophobic, hate-filled videos. Then he smacked down Theresa May for criticising him!

Let’s show him his brand of dangerous bigotry has no place in our country.

⏩ Sign the open letter that is already exploding on the internet and share it widely 

When enough of us sign we'll push the government to cancel Trump’s state visit, and if they don’t, we’ll meet him with giant copies outside 10 Downing St and Buckingham Palace.

 The Open Letter:

Dear Mr. Trump,

This is not what greatness looks like. 

The world rejects your fear, hate-mongering, and bigotry. We reject your support for torture, your calls for murdering civilians, and your general encouragement of violence. We reject your denigration of women, Muslims, Mexicans, and millions of others who don’t look like you, talk like you, or pray to the same god as you.

Facing your fear we choose compassion. Hearing your despair we choose hope. Seeing your ignorance we choose understanding.

As citizens of the world, we stand united against your brand of division.

Sincerely,
Sign your name

⏩ Instead of dividing us, let's make Trump a force to bring us together, to fight for everything we love.

With hope,

Loup Dargent
On behalf of Bert, Alice, Christoph, and the whole Avaaz team.

Related Articles:

• Video: CAIR Responds to Donald Trump's Anti-Muslim Retweets 
• There's an Insidious Strategy Behind Donald Trump's Retweets
• Why 'Judeo-Christian Values' Are A Dog-Whistle Myth Peddled By The Far Right

Billie Piper Gets... Piping for Small Business Saturday UK 2017

Billie Piper helps bake cakes at her local favourite shop, The Cake House in London, as she partners with Amex to encourage people to go out and 'Shop Small' this Saturday. (PRNewsfoto/Small Business Saturday)

This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Small Business Saturday, a day that shines a spotlight on all the amazing small and independent businesses across the country in this busy Christmas shopping period.

While at The Cake House, Billie Piper alongside the café owner, Lorenzo Khan helped out, baking and icing cakes to encourage everyone to get out there and support Small Business Saturday. 

Lorenzo has owned the café for over 15 years making it an integral part of the community in which Billie and many others live.

"I've been coming to The Cake House - daily! - since I moved to the area. I live locally and absolutely love the relationships with people in what feels like a village. I want my kids to know people in the community and be able to come into The Cake House and ask for their ridiculous desert requests! I come to The Cake House all the time and Lorenzo has managed to get my daily coffee order down from three shots to two which, in fairness, took quite some doing." 
Billie Piper

Billie Piper serves cakes at her local favourite shop, The Cake House in London, as she partners with Amex to encourage people to go out and 'Shop Small' this Saturday. (PRNewsfoto/Small Business Saturday)

Small Business Saturday sees thousands of small businesses all over the country take part every year since its inception. According to research undertaken by American Express, founder of Small Business Saturday, last year a total of over £717 million pounds was spent by shoppers on this particular day. 

⏩ 3,610 UK adults were polled by Toluna between 8pm on Saturday 3rd December 2016 and 8am on Monday 5th December 2016. 

 

Billie Piper helps owner Lorenzo Khan bake cakes at her local favourite shop, The Cake House in London, as she partners with Amex to encourage people to go out and 'Shop Small' this Saturday. (PRNewsfoto/Small Business Saturday)

Billie Piper partnered with American Express to celebrate the United Kingdom's thriving small independent businesses, such as The Cake House, to encourage shoppers to go out and 'shop small' this weekend.

"I was delighted when Amex asked me to help support this year's Small Business Saturday. They actually read about me talking about local businesses that I'm passionate about in my local press and decided to contact me to get involved. Independent retailers across the UK offer so much more to a community than just a shop - and that is something I really care about." 
Billie Piper

Q&A with Billie Piper: 

(Courtesy of Small Business Saturday)

Billie Piper with cakes... (PRNewsfoto/Small Business Saturday)

Q: Why do you think it’s important to support Small Business Saturday? 
A: “Because small businesses are amazing! They really are the unsung heroes of communities and the high street. When Amex approached me to support Small Business Saturday I jumped at the opportunity, I am a true believer in shopping small and local. Plus it’s Christmas, so if you want a gift that’s really special, then hunt around your local small businesses, especially this weekend. And that goes for food shopping too; small businesses are brilliant for advice and ideas on how to ‘do’ Christmas”. 

Q: Billie Piper Why did you choose to drop in to The Cake House ahead of Small Business Saturday? 
A: “I’ve been coming to The Cake House since I moved to the area. I’ve always loved local businesses that I can walk to, and when The Cake House opened, I was there like a flash. It’s so nice having Lorenzo in the area, he’s a total star and he makes a mean cake. His passion is so inspiring”. 

Q: Billie Piper Any dessert traditions for Christmas day? 
A: “Sherry trifle!” 

Q: Billie Piper Small Business Saturday is an initiative to encourage people to get out and shop small. What do you think independent retailers contribute to a local community? 
A: “Independent retailers who live & work locally, really are the glue that holds a community together. There’s a lovely vibe to Lorenzo’s. He says that his ‘mission’ was to make his business feel like it’s an extension of everyone’s living room and that’s 100% what he’s achieved, it’s so relaxed. My Mum goes there all the time too.” 

Q: Billie Piper What are your other favourite independent retailers? 
A: “There are so many that I love, particularly around my local community, but besides The Cake House & Lorenzo – there’s Frost on Bellenden Road in Peckham; a fantastic Mid-century furniture store which also specializes in art, antiques and utterly brilliant rarities and I always find a unique treasure there; and, Libreria in East London, an independent book store – it’s so beautifully set up, you can spend hours in there and find something truly beautiful”. 

Q: Billie Piper How do you think what you are doing will help to support Small Business Saturday? 
A: “Honestly I just hope that people think about all the brilliant small businesses out there. I hope that by working with AMEX as a Shop Small Ambassador, we can encourage people all over the UK to see that all these independent retailers offer so much more to a community that just being ‘a shop’. By supporting local, independent businesses - you’re investing in your local community which is brilliant”. 

Q: Billie Piper Have you started your Christmas shopping and what are the Billie Piper family Christmas traditions? 
A: “Yes I have actually. As for traditions, there’s always a proper prawn cocktail for starter on Christmas Day, and always the Queen’s Speech on telly – live, never recorded!” 

Q: Billie Piper If you could have your own independent retailer, what would it be? Where would it located? 
A: “A florist underneath my house has always been my dream!” 

Q: Billie Piper Are you working on any projects next year which you’d like to share? 
A:“I’m going to perform “Yerma” in New York, Spring of next year and after that I will direct and star in an independent film that I’ve also written, so that’s incredibly exciting”.  

Billie Piper as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who (image via LoupDargent.info)

About Billie Piper: 
Actress Billie Piper recently won six Best Actress Awards, including the highly prestigious Olivier Award for her phenomenally reviewed starring performance in the title role of Simon Stone's sold out adaptation of Yerma at The Young Vic. She is going with the production to The Armory in New York in Spring 2018.

She is much beloved from our television screens with highly celebrated performances in Showtime's Penny Dreadful, Doctor Who for the BBC, the Philip Pullman series of The Shadow of the North and The Ruby in the Smoke for the BBC.

About Small Business Saturday: 
Small Business Saturday is a grassroots initiative encouraging people to show their support for small businesses by shopping small.

First conceived by American Express in the U.S. in 2010, where it has become a key date in the shopping calendar, it has received widespread backing from numerous organisations and personalities.

Now in its fifth year in the UK, Small Business Saturday UK 2017 (2nd December) aims to build on the success of previous years.

As founder of Small Business Saturday in the U.S., American Express is principal supporter of the campaign in the UK, encouraging people to make the most of their small, local, independent shops and businesses.

Billie Piper helps bake cakes at her local favourite shop, The Cake House in London (PRNewsfoto/Small Business Saturday)

SOURCE: Small Business Saturday

Bonus Videos:

There's an Insidious Strategy Behind Donald Trump's Retweets

‘I’m not saying, I’m just saying.’ (Punyaruk Baingern/Shutterstock.com)

⏩ Editor’s note: This is an updated version of the article "How Donald Trump Gets Away With Saying Things Other Candidates Can't" published in March 2016

By Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M University

On Nov. 29, President Trump retweeted a series of videos that purported to depict violence committed by Muslims. They had originated from the account of a far-right British ultranationalist who had been convicted for harassing a Muslim. The backlash was swift, with British Prime Minister Theresa May saying “the President is wrong to have done this.”

But Trump’s retweeting of controversial (sometimes outright false) content is part of a pattern.

For example, during the 2016 campaign, George Stephanopoulos asked Donald Trump about his retweet of a follower who insisted that both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were ineligible for the presidency.

Trump dismissed Stephanopoulos’ question with “it was a retweet” – as if to say that retweeting someone else’s claim meant that he wasn’t responsible for the content.

When pressed, Trump continued:

“I mean, let people make their own determination. I’ve never looked at it, George. I honestly have never looked at it. As somebody said, he’s not [eligible]…and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it’s very interesting.”

It’s a response that can be reduced to I’m not saying it, I’m just saying it.

As a scholar of American political rhetoric, I’ve previously written about the ways that Donald Trump’s rhetorical style mirrors that of polarizing figures like George Wallace and Joseph McCarthy.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that what sets Trump apart is his reliance upon paralipsis, a device that enables him to publicly say things that he can later disavow – without ever having to take responsibility for his words.

Just saying…
The art of rhetoric – or persuasive communication – can include any number of forms: speeches, essays, tweets, images, films and more.

Paralipsis (para, “side” and leipein, “to leave”) is a Greek term that translates to “leave to the side.” It’s thought to be an ironic way for a speaker to say two things at once.

For example, say you wanted to imply that your coworker takes too many coffee breaks without actually accusing him wasting time at work. You might say something like, “I’m not saying that he drinks more coffee than anyone else in the office, but every time I go to the break room, he’s in there.” You might also shrug and make a “something seems kind of off” facial expression.

Paralipsis is a powerful rhetorical device because it can also allow someone to make a false accusation – or spread a false rumor – while skirting consequences.
And Trump has become a master at wielding this tool.

For example, after he was widely condemned for retweeting a graphic of homicide data delineated by race, FactCheck.org found that “almost every figure in the graphic is wrong.” His response on the Bill O’Reilly Show was:

Bill, I didn’t tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert, and it was also a radio show…am I gonna check every statistic? …All it was is a retweet. And it wasn’t from me. It came out of a radio show, and other places…This was a retweet. And it comes from sources that are very credible, what can I tell you?

In other words: I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly used paralipsis to deflect criticism that he’s courting white supremacists.

In January 2016, Trump retweeted a photoshopped image of Jeb Bush from a user with the handle WhiteGenocideTM. In response to the backlash he received for retweeting a white supremacist, Trump simply shrugged: “I don’t know about retweeting. You retweet somebody and they turn out to be white supremacists. I know nothing about these groups that are supporting me.”

Likewise, he blamed a faulty earpiece for his unwillingness to disavow David Duke and the KKK in a CNN interview:

I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know. I don’t know – did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.

I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

And when Gawker tricked Trump into retweeting a quote from Benito Mussolini during the campaign, his response was “What difference does it make whether it’s Mussolini or somebody else? It’s certainly a very interesting quote.”

Accountability and responsibility
Certainly it’s a good thing to “start dialogue.” Trump knows that “interesting” content attracts retweets, followers, audiences and media attention.

However, there’s danger in circulating accusations and rumors, even if the purpose is to “start dialogue.” Research shows that once an accusation or a rumor begins to circulate, it’s very difficult to retract. Often, a retraction or clarification doesn’t receive as much attention as the initial accusation. Meanwhile, the mere act of retracting misinformation can reaffirm the deceptive assertions as facts, even after the clarification.

So what does it mean when a political figure gains a devoted following and rises to prominence – yet consistently avoids taking responsibility for the content of his public messages?

Political theorists, rhetoricians and historians have grappled with this exact problem since the rise of the “demagogue” in Athens in 429 B.C., when Pericles’ death created a vacuum for “unofficial” leaders of the people to rise to power.

The danger, according to political scientist Ernest Barker, was that “such a leader – having no official executive position – could exercise initiative and determine policy without incurring political responsibility, since it was not his duty to execute the policy which he had induced the assembly to accept.”

In the Greek context, Barker described the danger of demagogues who weren’t tasked with implementing the policies for which they advocated. In our current political context, Trump can argue that he can’t be held accountable because he wasn’t the one who originally posted the tweet. He can shrug and claim that he’s simply giving a voice to an idea.
In both cases, the defining feature of demagogues is their refusal to accept responsibility for their actions.

Donald Trump, Reality TV "Star"

Yet Donald Trump (the television star) routinely fired people on his show “The Apprentice” for failing to take responsibility for their team’s failures. And he’s often given lectures on “responsibility” to his Twitter followers, like on February 14, 2013 when he invited his followers to “take responsibility for yourself – it’s a very empowering attitude.”

To use the President’s brand of paralipsis: I’m not saying that Trump’s a hypocrite and a demagogue. I’m just saying that he doesn’t exactly follow his own advice.


About Today's Contributor:
Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the Aggie Agora, Texas A&M University

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Video: CAIR Responds to Donald Trump's Anti-Muslim Retweets

Donald Trump has retweeted Britain First deputy leader (image via The Independent)

Earlier today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, responded to what it called President Trump's "incitement to violence against American Muslims" after he retweeted Islamophobic videos from Jayda Fransen, an anti-Muslim British political leader who has been charged in the United Kingdom with "religious aggravated harassment."

SEE: 
⏩ Trump Shares Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Videos
⏩ Trump Retweets Anti-Muslim Videos

Joining CAIR at the Capitol Hill news conference in Washington, D.C., were representatives of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).

SPEAKERS: (In Order of Appearance) CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, MPAC Policy Fellow for Religious Freedom Ilhan Cagri, and SAALT Director of National Policy and Advocacy Lakshmi Sridaran.

Video: CAIR News Conference in Response to Donald Trump's Anti-Muslim Tweets

In a prepared statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

This morning, millions of Americans were shocked but not surprised to see President Trump re-tweet anti-Muslim videos.

One of the videos has already been de-bunked by Snopes. The other two videos are unverified.

The videos were from a hate group known as "Britain First," which calls for a comprehensive ban on Islam in the UK and to deport British Muslims, who've made the UK their home for generations.

President Trump's actions are putting the lives and safety of American Muslim children and families at risk. 

Hate speech leads to hate crimes. When hate speech and conspiracy theories against American minorities go unchallenged, they foster an atmosphere that causes hate crimes.

Throughout this year, CAIR offices nationwide received, on average, at least 1-2 daily reports of hate crimes targeting American Muslims, Muslim houses of worship, or people perceived as Muslim.

As numerous Americans who are Muslim or 'looked Muslim' were shot or beaten severely, we did not hear a word from this President.

During most of these attacks, attackers uttered or expressed the same anti-Muslim slurs repeated daily in mainstream headlines and often by President Trump himself.

This is a continuation of President Trump's pattern of sexual, religious and racial harassment of many Americans. This includes Trump's attempts to turn Americans against each other… and his standing by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was credibly accused of inappropriate contact with children.

Trump has infected the Republican Party and I am asking my Republican friends who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution's guarantees of equal justice under law, to not sit idly by while all this injustice continues.

This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one.

I am asking our nation's Republican leadership:

• When will you draw a line in the sand against this bigotry and harassment?

• What will it take for the Republican Party to say that these actions do not represent the Grand Old Party? 

• When will you put country over party? 

• When is the Republican Leadership, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, going to stand up for all Americans? This cannot be the America you want your children to live in. 

Millions of Americans worry about our safety and future. 

We need Republican Party leadership to publicly affirm American values of religious freedom,

We need Republican Party leadership to join us in reminding our fellow Americans that while some may want to divide us, we are, and always will be, Americans, united as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

CAIR has witnessed an unprecedented spike in hate incidents targeting American Muslims and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.

SEE: 
⏩ CAIR Report Shows 2017 on Track to Becoming One of Worst Years Ever for Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes
⏩ CAIR Says New FBI Hate Crimes Report Shows Need to Stand Up to Increasing Bigotry

Earlier today, Awad also tweeted in response to Trump's hate posts: 

"Have you no sense of decency, Sir? Do you know how many anti-Muslims incidents in the US we recorded at #CAIR this year alone? 3,296. And we haven't heard a peep from you. Some president."

To read Nihad Awad's post on Twitter, click here...

SOURCE: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

More Related Stuff: 

Donald Trump and Britain First: White House scrambles to defend President as global condemnation grows

Donald Trump is retweeting the deputy leader of far-right group Britain First

Bonus Picture:

(courtesy of Trumpton)

After consulting the White House vet, Mr Kelly decided to tackle Mr Trump’s Twittering

'Trust Us, We're Lying': Eurozine And Cultural Journals From Across Europe Take A Closer Look At The Power Of 'Post-Truth' In A New Series Of Online Articles And Debates

Vladimir Putin's War on Information (Image via kbia.org)

In a new series of online articles launched by the Eurozine network of cultural journals, 13 cultural journalists and academics from across Europe, plus U.S. writers, examine in-depth the phenomena of fake news, post-truth and disinformation.

Eurozine's focal point 'Disinformation and Democracy' combines empirical studies at national levels with theoretical discussion of the politics of post-truth; analyses of contemporary developments with intellectual and conceptual histories; and investigations of the political fringes, asking: what now constitutes democratic 'normality'?

⏩ It's impossible to ignore Russia's role in these phenomena. 

• Markus Wehner gives an overview of the strategy and techniques of Russian 'infowar' 

• Anton Shekhovtsov traces how far-right groups across Europe and the U.S. use Russian web-hosting to spread anti-western propaganda 

• Daniel Leisegang assesses the effectiveness of Germany's new law on online hate speech and fake news, given the virtual migration to the Runet. Shifting the focus to eastern Europe 

• Milena Iakimova and Dimitar Vatsov explore how, in Bulgaria, Russian propaganda has co-opted western grassroots criticism of liberalism and globalization since 2013. They note: 'We were ... amazed when we started hearing the talking points identified by our study now coming from the mouth of the new U.S. President, Donald Trump.' 

• From dialectical materialism to neoliberalism, any politics that lays claims to the truth is both illusory and dangerous, argues Jean-Claude Monod 

• Political scientist Joseph Uscinski explores the relationship between conspiracy theorizing and partisanship in the U.S., pointing out: 'If one wants to challenge mainstream wisdom, conspiracy theories are an excellent rhetorical device for doing so.' 

• Providing historical perspective, Marci Shore compares western intellectuals' response to the disappointment of 'real-existing communism' with that of the dissidents who lived under it: can a radical concept of truth counter the threat of 'post-modern dictatorships'? 

• Valentin Groebner traces a thread of fakery in 'news' right back to the Middle Ages.

Fake News Invasion (image via thedisorderofthings.com)

⏩All the focal point texts are available in English in Eurozine.

⏩This editorial collaboration within the Eurozine network continued via a series of panel discussions at the 28th European Meeting of Cultural Journals in Tartu, Estonia in October 2017.

The discussions can be viewed  below:

-

SOURCE: Eurozine

Before Breitbart, There Was The Charleston News And Courier

Political reporter William D. Workman speaks at a GOP event in 1962. (Courtesy of South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina, CC BY)

By Sid Bedingfield, University of Minnesota

Conservatives who dislike Donald Trump like to blame the president and his Breitbart cheering section for the racial demagoguery they see in today’s Republican Party.
For example, New York Times columnist David Brooks lamented the GOP’s transformation over the past decade from a party that had always been decent on racial issues to one that now embraced “white identity politics.”

I respect Brooks and read him regularly, but on this issue he and his ideological allies have a blind spot. They ignore overwhelming evidence showing the central role racial politics played in the Republican Party’s rise to power after the civil rights movement.
In my book “Newspaper Wars: Civil Rights and White Resistance in South Carolina,” I write about the white journalists who helped revive the GOP in one Deep South state. Their story shows how prominent voices of the conservative movement have long harnessed racial resentment to fuel the party’s political ascendancy.

A journalistic mouthpiece for segregation
In 1962, Republican William D. Workman Jr. launched a long-shot bid for a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina. For more than eight decades, the Democratic Party had been the only party that mattered in state politics. To most white voters, it represented the overthrow of Reconstruction and the restoration of white political rule.

Yet Workman nearly defeated a two-term Democratic incumbent. It was a turning point that signaled the GOP’s reemergence as a competitive force in the region.

The nation’s top political reporter, James Reston of The New York Times, traveled to South Carolina to examine this new GOP in the Deep South. He called Workman a “journalistic Goldwater Republican.” It might seem like an odd description, but it fit the candidate perfectly.

Political reporter William D. Workman’s 1962 U.S. Senate campaign in South Carolina proved that ‘Goldwater Republicans’ could compete in the Deep South.(Courtesy of South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina)

Before he joined the senate race, Workman had been the state’s best-known political reporter. He had also been working secretly with GOP allies to build the party in South Carolina and rally support for Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, leader of the GOP’s rising conservative wing.

In the late 1950s, Workman and his boss, Charleston News and Courier editor Thomas R. Waring Jr., were staunch segregationists who had found a political ally in William F. Buckley Jr., conservative editor of a new journal, National Review.

As political scientist Joseph E. Lowndes notes, National Review was the first conservative journal to try to link the southern opposition to enforced integration with the small-government argument that was central to economic conservatism.

In 1957, Buckley delivered the magazine’s most forthright overture to southern segregationists. In an editorial on black voting rights, Buckley called whites “the advanced race” in the South and said whites, therefore, should be allowed to “take such measures as necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically.” In Buckley’s view, “the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.”

In the News and Courier, Waring described the editorial as “brave words,” but Buckley’s argument created a firestorm within the conservative movement. His brother-in-law, L. Brent Bozell, condemned the editorial in the pages of Buckley’s own magazine. Bozell said Buckley’s unconstitutional appeal to white supremacy threatened to do “grave hurt to the conservative movement.”

Workman and the ‘great white switch’
Buckley and Goldwater began avoiding such overtly racist appeals, but it took longer for their southern allies to temper their rhetoric and master the use of racially coded language. In his 1960 book, “The Case for the South,” Workman wrote that African-Americans remained “a white man’s burden” – a “violent” and “indolent” people who needed guidance from their white superiors.

Two years later, Workman rallied local and national Republicans to his banner in the senate race. At the time, the tiny GOP in South Carolina was run by conservative businessmen who had migrated to the Palmetto State from the North. They embraced Goldwater’s call for lower taxes, weaker unions and smaller government, but the Republicans lacked credibility with white voters who cared mostly about segregation and white political rule.
Workman’s 1962 campaign changed that. He united the state’s racial and economic conservatives, a political marriage that would fuel the party’s dramatic growth in South Carolina and the nation over the next two decades.

As historian Dan T. Carter contends, “even though the streams of racial and economic conservatism have sometimes flowed in separate channels, they ultimately joined in the political coalition that reshaped American politics” in the years after the civil rights movement.

In 1964, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond – the former Dixiecrat presidential candidate – left the Democratic Party and joined the GOP. Courtesy of South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina

Workman was thrilled by the letters he received from northern conservatives who embraced his campaign. One of those was William Loeb, editor of New Hampshire’s Manchester Union-Leader, who told Workman the GOP should become “the white man’s party.” Loeb said his proposal would “leave Democrats with the Negro vote,” but give the Republicans the white vote and “white people, thank God, are still in the majority.”

Buoyed by the surprising strength of Workman’s campaign, South Carolina’s junior senator, Strom Thurmond, abandoned the Democratic Party in 1964 and joined the Republicans. Sixteen years earlier, Thurmond had left the Democrats briefly to run for president as a “Dixiecrat” on the States’ Rights ticket. His surprise announcement in 1964 signaled the start of what political scientists call the “great white switch.”

As more African-American voters joined the Democratic Party, southern whites moved to the GOP. William Loeb was getting his wish.

Reagan and the Neshoba County Fair
By the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan had united former segregationists with economic and social conservatives to create a political movement that would dominate American politics. Reagan built this coalition in part through the use of coded rhetoric tying race to such issues as crime, welfare and government spending.

In 1980, he launched his fall presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Sixteen years earlier, three civil rights activists had been murdered in Neshoba County and buried in an earthen dam. Reagan used his visit to declare his support for states’ rights – a phrase indelibly linked to Thurmond’s Dixiecrat campaign of 1948.

In a 2007 column, Brooks angrily disputes any notion that Reagan’s Neshoba County trip was a dog-whistle appeal to white racial resentment in the post-civil rights era. He calls such claims a “slur” and a “calumny.” Reagan’s campaign was notoriously disorganized, Brooks argues. The candidate had planned to launch his general election campaign discussing inner-city problems with the Urban League, not preaching states’ rights in Neshoba County.
Maybe he’s right. Perhaps it was just a scheduling mishap. But on the question of race and politics, I’m more inclined to believe Lee Atwater, the late political strategist from South Carolina.

Atwater served as White House political director under Reagan and chief strategist for President George H. W. Bush’s 1988 campaign. In a 1981 interview with political scientist Alexander Lamis, Atwater explained the evolution of coded racial language in political campaigns in the South.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you, backfires,” Atwater said. “So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites…”

This is not to say that all Republicans are racist, or that economic, social and cultural issues played no role in the rise of the conservative GOP. But it is clear that racial resentment mattered to voters – a lot – and the Republican Party found ways to stoke that animus for political gain.

Donald Trump’s racial appeals may be more transparent. But in him, the legacy of conservative journalists like William Workman lives on.

About Today's Contributor:
Sid Bedingfield, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Minnesota

This article was originally published on The Conversation..

Why 'Judeo-Christian Values' Are A Dog-Whistle Myth Peddled By The Far Right

President Trump recently stated his support for ‘Judeo-Christian values’ … but what does that phrase really mean? (Pixabay, CC BY-SA)

By M J C Warren, University of Sheffield

The phrase “Judeo-Christian” has been around since the 1930s but US President Donald Trump recently resurrected it in a deeply problematic speech on October 13, 2017 in which he said: “We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values … We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”

It might seem neighbourly, even pluralistic, to include Judaism in a declaration of purported Western values. But in reality this isn’t how the term has functioned, either historically or more recently. Instead, the phrase is used to exclude rather than include. Despite implying that Jews are part of this resurrection of Judeo-Christian values, Trump in no way intends a campaign to Make Hanukkah Great Again. His “Judeo-Christian values” are about protecting Christmas, and about protecting Christians – at the exclusion of others.

Christian-majority nations such as the UK and US often lay claim to laws and ethics based on “Judeo-Christian values”. But it is important to remember that Jews have been systematically excluded from and terrorised by states that claim this Judeo-Christian foundation.

From the 1290 expulsion of Jews from England to Jewish refugees being turned away by Canada, the US and the UK during World War II, Jews have been excluded more often than welcomed.

For centuries, Jews have been made to feel unwelcome in the Christian world and it seems that it is only now that a new demographic of (often Muslim) immigrants fleeing war and economic hardship have reached the West that Jews are being included – and even then only on someone else’s terms.

A right wing slogan
“Judeo-Christian” is now most often used to draw a line between imagined Christian values and a perceived (but false) threat of Muslim immigration. It’s in this context, that right wing figures such as Nigel Farage use the phrase. Talking about radical Muslim clerics such as Anjem Choudary, he said for example:

My country is a Judeo-Christian country. So we’ve got to actually start standing up for our values.

But in this statement, Farage connects his fears of radical Islam with the idea of “Judeo-Christian values”. It appears that it isn’t so much about including Jews as it is about excluding Muslims. And since Farage has also come under attack for anti-Semitic comments, including being called on to apologise after recent comments about the threat of “the Jewish lobby” to American politics, it seems hard to view the “Judeo-” in his “Judeo-Christian” as actually valuing Jewish people or Judaism as a religion.

Farage’s statement even prompted the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to demand an apology.

Time and again, when Farage and Trump use the term, what they really imply is an “us-versus-them” division between the West and Islam. This is not about the inclusion of Jews in the values of these nations, then, but about the xenophobic exclusion of an “other”.

Invoked in anti-immigration rhetoric with the goal of excluding Muslims, this phrase is actually used to scaffold a false narrative about Christians being persecuted, threatened or besieged, which gives motivation for the protection of “Judeo-Christian values”. In fact, Christians are not persecuted in the countries where Farage and Trump make their homes.

Supersessionism
A quick search on Twitter for the phrase “Judeo-Christian” illustrates that white supremacists have embraced the term – and that Jews reject it.

It’s not surprising that many Jews are not falling for this dog-whistle phrase, especially since the myth of a Judeo-Christian society rests on the false – and dangerous – idea that Judaism and Christianity hold the same ideas and values.

There are many fundamental differences between these two religions – and that’s OK. To respect and value Judaism means to do so on its own terms, and not only if it conforms to Christian ideas about what religion should be. Ignoring these differences (and to pretend that Jews and Christians believe the same things) risks subsuming Judaism into Christianity. It risks viewing Judaism as an archaic precursor to Christianity rather than a continuing unique and vibrant tradition. There is nothing “Judeo” about saying Merry Christmas.

Indeed, the phrase “Judeo-Christian” erases Judaism by implying that Christian values are Jewish values. Erasing Judaism by subsuming it into Christianity is called supersessionism, a tactic of Christian polemicists for centuries, and one that is currently in use by the Christian religious right.

It seems, then, that the idea of Judeo-Christian values excludes both Jews and Muslims. The phrase tacitly excludes Jews by subsuming Judaism into Christianity, and it explicitly excludes Muslims in its use in anti-immigration rhetoric. In reality, “Judeo-Christian values” actually point to a particular type of right-wing Christian values. Continuing to use this phrase only contributes to exclusionary and divisive political rhetoric. When we hear it, we should call it out for what it is.

About Today's Contributor:
M J C Warren, Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation.