At Odds With the Rest

UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP went to Poland before he arrived in Hamburg (Germany) for the G20 meeting. In Poland, Trump gave a fiery speech about defending the West. “The fundamental question of our time,” Trump said, “is whether the West has the will to survive.” Then Trump elaborated on this theme: “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilisation in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?” Trump’s most direct statement came in his punch line: “The West will never be broken.”

So much history lay within this speech. It was Trump’s clearest statement of his views. He sees himself as the defender of “the West” and of its “civilisation” and “values”. Other leaders, he suggests, are too weak. They are unwilling to stand for “the West” against its enemies. Trump did not specify the nature of the enemies. He did not directly say against whom he is defending the West. But, given his other statements, it seems clear that his enemies are Islam and liberalism.

The key phrase in his speech was “the will to survive”. It alludes to the language of Nazism, which often spoke of the importance of the “will” and the necessity to struggle to “survive” against Judaism, liberalism and communism. Trump’s speech echoed the bookThe Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy written by the American scholar Lothrop Stoddard in 1920. Racial paranoia runs from Stoddard’s popular book of 1920 to Trump’s awkward speeches of the present. The fear of the “rising tide of colour” and of the end of “white world supremacy” absorbs Trump as much as it did Stoddard, although the American President is more shy in his comments. He does not openly talk of race. Everything is in code. It is easier that way. But Trump’s code is thin. It is obvious that he is obsessed about race and religion, that he worries about darker bodies that want to enter the U.S. either to take away jobs or to kill others. It is a bleak picture of humanity, ceaseless in struggle on racial lines. Little wonder that the other leaders of the G20 are embarrassed by Trump. He openly speaks in the language of race, whereas they prefer innuendo. Few of these leaders come out and defend a more robust liberal view of the world against Trump’s racist paranoia. They prefer to ignore him, which is why he spent large parts of the G20 meeting sitting by himself or roaming around the conference table haplessly. Read More

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