By George Fallar 
Wisconsin was the target market for the first Donald Trump “tele-rally” on July 17. The “rally” was a rambling 23 minute recording of the current president played to a list of telephone numbers.
Let’s Talk White Property Values
Featured toward the end of the recording was a word salad of information that should be very familiar to people paying attention during the civil rights changes in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
In just a few words, the president brought to the forefront the same ideology that landed him and his father in hot water when the federal government successfully sued them for racial discrimination in 1973.
It was a purposeful dog whistle to his cadre of faithful supporters who might be concerned about people unlike themselves living anywhere near their neighborhood.
That is unabashed racism. If you don’t object to it, you bear some of the responsibility for the continuation of the worst lingering stain the people of the United States have allowed to go unwashed.
The Racist Dog Whistle From Trump
Here’s what passes for my transcription of the riff in question. There’s a link to a recording on YouTube cued up to the correct spot if you wish to hear it yourself. The “he” is Joe Biden, with this passage supporting the argument Biden’s goal is to destroy the country.
He wants to hurt the suburbs by putting low income, far-left bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats are going to put people into the suburb, they’re going to bring people, eliminate single-family zoning, they want to eliminate single-family zoning, bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will be go down, and if you watch, within the next two weeks, you’re going to be seeing that I’m going to be eliminating that program.
Donald Trump – July, 2020 Tele-rally
That program has been a total disaster for different, kind of different, if you look different cities and areas around our country, and it affects very much Wisconsin also, it’s actually a very big thing it’s been going on for years, where we’re destroying the suburbs, we’re destroying housing values and we’re creating crime, it’s very unfair to the people that have fought so hard to attain the American dream.
No Room for Discussion
Predicted rejoinder from Trump supporters:
Oh yeah? Where, exactly, in that entire quote does Mr. President use any word that indicates race or ethnicity?
Dog whistles don’t need specifics. Effective dog whistles use key phrases and words to trigger ideas already ingrained in the minds of people. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
Oh yeah? What, exactly, are those key phrases, liberal snowflake?
Glad you asked.
- “Low income” triggers an unpleasant mental picture of people unlike YOU.
- “Bringing who knows” indicates people unlike YOU, people who are THEM.
- “Communities will be unsafe” because low income and “who knows” people are THEM, obviously criminals and rapists.
- “Housing values will go down” because who wants to live close to THEM? Certainly YOU don’t!
- “Destroying the suburbs” because the suburbs are no place for multi-family housing or, of course, the crime that comes with that.
- “People that have fought so hard to attain the American dream” is YOU.
I understand many people will disagree with the above appraisal. People I know will disagree. They are simply wrong.
This Is Nothing New
The above language is classic code for racial discrimination. If you haven’t experienced it, you’re lucky. If you’ve heard it and let it go unchecked, you’re complicit.
Not only is this nothing new, it hasn’t disappeared.
In 2019, Newsday researched racial discrimination tactics on Long Island, New York, ironically the home island of the current president. The link to “Long Island Divided” is below in what passes for footnotes. But, this very brief excerpt of the story of an in-depth investigation tells enough:
In nearly a quarter of the tests – 24 percent – agents directed whites and minorities into differing communities through house listings that had the earmarks of “steering” – the unlawful sorting of home buyers based on race or ethnicity.
That is racism and it’s exactly what the president was selling to the listeners of his “tele-rally”, fomenting the fear of sharing their neighborhoods. Any person who nodded their head in agreement when hearing that dog whistle is, by definition, a racist.
Discard Bigotry or Own It
For good reason, racism and bigotry are often lumped together as one negative character trait. Inferring a person is a racist seems, somehow, worse than characterizing them as a bigot.
Why? Because, deep down in our guts where the things we don’t admit exist reside many, probably most, of us are bigots to some degree. We hold prejudices learned through the years through either experience or repetition, enough of them that jokes can be told without any of us blinking an eye.
Women are bad drivers.
Right? Most of us aspire to eliminating those prejudices and we’re all works in progress.
This situation, however, is different because of the worldwide impact of the president of the United States espousing blatant racism embedded in clouds of surrounding bigotry. And, as he stated early on with his “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote” boast, he’s lost very few people from his faithful despite exposing jaw-dropping prejudices against the disabled and many other groups of people.
Now is the time to get off that bandwagon, just vote against it or stay home if you just can’t (usually because of some “pro-life” stance that the president really doesn’t have anything to do with).
If you don’t, you belong in the boat your captain is piloting straight up on the rocks.
Supporting information links
- 10 types of statements that signify racial discrimination at work – Bononi Law Group
- Key Terms – Race and Racism – Vanderbilt University
- Exposing Housing Discrimination – Urban Institute
- Long Island Divided – Newsday
- Consent Order – United States of America against Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, Trump Management