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Macdonald completely misses the point

Macdonald completely misses the point. U.S. GDP growth per capita declined from 4.5 per cent annually under Reagan to 3.9 per cent under Clinton to two per cent under the second Bush, to one per cent under Obama, while the national debt under Obama increased by 125 per cent in eight years. That is the reason Trump’s voters were angry and the answer to the spurious rhetorical question “What kind” (of nationalism) is American nationalism, no colour and all colours. Yet he’s continually accused of being a bigot, despite being prouder of nothing than the fact that unemployment rates for all groups of non-white Americans are lower now and incomes higher than they have ever been.

Photo by Saul Loeb

Macdonald pretends, in effect, that all nationalists are white nationalists, and that white nationalists are white supremacists. This is bunk. The half of America that supports Trump is not composed in any significant measure of racists of any kind; they are of all races and they are all nationalists, in the sense of being patriotic Americans who do not want their country swindled in trade deals by the Chinese or Mexicans, or to be swamped by 100,000 undocumented and illegal immigrants a month (to cite the figure from March), or to make an ass of itself in the world with Obama’s dissolving “red line” (in Syria). In support of his argument, Macdonald refers to Candace Owens as “a conservative American activist cited by the New Zealand murderer as his greatest influence” and who Macdonald claims, “once said Hitler wasn’t such a bad fellow.” Macdonald doesn’t mention that Ms. Owens is an African-American, whose comments on Hitler were completely misrepresented by a Democratic congressman whom she exposed as a liar and that she in fact said that Hitler was “a megalomaniacal psychopath.” He wrote that Congressman Stephen King “has rhetorically asked what’s wrong with being a white nationalist or white supremacist, (and) remains a proud Republican.” Perhaps, but Macdonald doesn’t mention that King was severely reprimanded by the Republican congressional leadership with the agreement of the president.