Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump, discusses Trump's divisive rhetoric.
In Defying the Odds, we trace Trump's outsiderism to earlier figures. The update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. In the book, we write of an important precursor:
Trump at "Salute to America," July 4:
In Defying the Odds, we trace Trump's outsiderism to earlier figures. The update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. In the book, we write of an important precursor:
In 1968, former Alabama governor George Wallace carried several Southern states under the banner of the American Independent Party. A few years earlier, he had literally stood in the schoolhouse door as federal officials arrived to integrate the University of Alabama. Now he was running as a fighter for the little guy, attacking the “pseudo-intellectuals and the theoreticians and some professors and some newspaper editors and some judges and some preachers” who looked down on “the pipe-fitter, the communications worker, the fireman, the policeman, the barber, the white-collar worker.” Wallace boasted that he would run over demonstrators who tried to lie down in front of his car. Though he never did any such thing, his supporters cheered the threat. Columnist David Broder wrote: “When Wallace has finished his harangue, the emotion is closer to that of a lynch mob -- a pack of angry, frustrated men and women, who see his cause, not just as a chance for victory but as a guarantee of vengeance against all who have affronted them for so long.”
Trump at "Salute to America," July 4:
We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing...Their goal is demolition. Our goal is not to destroy the greatest structure on Earth, what we have built: The United States of America.
This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life.
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Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress...Their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America.
Day after day, we are exposing the depravity, dishonesty and sickness of the corrupt Washington establishment — and with your help, we are going to complete the mission and DRAIN THE SWAMP! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/SM5hocqoNi— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2019
Our system is under attack: the property system, the free enterprise system, and local government. Anarchy prevails today in the streets of the large cities of our country, making it unsafe for you to even go to a political rally here in Madison Square Garden, and that is a sad commentary. Both national parties in the last number of years have kowtowed to every anarchist that has roamed the streets. I want to say before I start on this any longer, that I'm not talking about race. The overwhelming majority of all races in this country are against the breakdown of law and order as much as those who are assembled here tonight. It's a few anarchists, a few activists, a few militants, a few revolutionaries, and a few Communists. But your day, of course, is going to be over soon. The American people are not going to stand by and see the security of our nation imperiled, and they're not going to stand by and see this nation destroyed, I can assure you that.
The liberals and the left-wingers in both national parties have brought us to the domestic mess we are in now.
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I'm talking about law and order. The Supreme Court of our country has hand-cuffed the police, and tonight if you walk out of this building and are knocked in the head, the person who knocks you in the head is out of jail before you get in the hospital, and on Monday morning, they'll try a policeman about it. I can say I'm going to give the total support of the presidency to the policemen and the firemen in this country, and I'm going to say, you enforce the law and you make it safe on the streets, and the president of the United States will stand with you. My election as president is going to put some backbone in the backs of some mayors and governors I know through the length and breadth of this country.
You had better be thankful for the police and the firemen of this country. If it were not for them, you couldn't even ride in the streets, much less walk in the streets, of our large cities. Yes, the Kerner Commission Report, recently written by Republicans and Democrats, said that you are to blame for the breakdown of law and order, and that the police are to blame. Well, you know, of course, you aren't to blame. They said we have a sick society. Well, we don't have any sick society. We have a sick Supreme Court and some sick politicians in Washington, that's who's sick in our country.
