A 31-year-old techie of Indian origin who had just secured her H1B called upon an Uber to visit her friends. The Uber arrived at the scheduled time. It was driven by a white American man probably 25-year-old. As the driver started the journey after the pickup, he assumed that his passenger was probably a student because Lafayette is basically a university town. As his curiosity got better of him, he asked,
“Hey which school do you go to?”
To which, the passenger replied that she was actually a software professional working for a large software company. The driver was surprised but didn’t say anything. The passenger later told me that by all possibility the driver probably was driving Uber to pay for his college and most likely had a dream of becoming just like her. What she told after this surprised me and it would not be wrong to say, probably it somewhat frightened me as well. She said that there was no way in the world that this “White People” could compete with the Indian, Japanese or Koreans and get a decent job. For a casual observer, this might just be a regular conversation, but for me who always wanted to know, how on earth a person like Donald Trump could become the head of a country like the USA which boasted of leaders like Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln or till recently Barack Obama. These gents were true statesmen, unlike Donald Trump.
I wanted to get in a bit deeper. Providence gave me a chance. I was invited for a Christmas Eve party hosted by a famous doctor who again was of Indian origin and as doctors in America are, was filthy rich. This was in Sacramento, California. As I stepped out of my taxi, a fleet of cars, all high end, greeted me. They belonged to the guests. As I entered inside, I saw the Indian diaspora in its gorgeous best. Suits, probably designed by Armani or Alfred Dunhill and cocktail gowns again designed by Ralph Lauren or Roberto Cavalli announced the prosperity of the Indian community. As I got chatting, I was approached by a waiter, again a white American offering me some bites to go with my drink. I looked at him squarely and he smiles politely asking me if I was having a good time. I thanked him and started to look around the room and realised that the chefs, the waiters, the bartenders were all white Americans. I stepped outside the house and realised that even the drivers of the cars were white Americans. It would not be wrong for me to say that the amount of money that was spent by the host that evening was probably more than these guys made in a year. As the party got over, I called a taxi and went towards my hotel. On the way, I probably might have crossed Christmas Eve party like this of a Chinese, a Korean or a Japanese.
It’s when I reached my hotel and lit the cigarette that I realised why actually Trump had won. In a country like America where over a period of time the marginalized and the Blacks were slowly given their rights, so much so that a Black man, a liberal, a pro-immigrant became the President for two consecutive terms. This is when the Republicans realised and even solved the code of winning the election after Obama. They clearly understood that insecurity in majority leads to ultra-nationalism. For decades the common white American was laid back, drinking beer and watching soccer. At the inception of the pro-Black and pro-Immigrant policies, he did not pay a lot of attention. He was probably ok with it. But as years got converted into decades, he started witnessing that he indeed was losing out to the other communities. As my two examples above portray my case, the Trump agenda said “Let’s make America great again” by which he clearly meant that he is pro-White Americans who are the actual majority of the USA. He drove into them fear and raised dinner table questions like “Are they actually taking over?” That’s actually when the common White American realised that he actually needed someone who is like him or understands him better than others who were famously called the Liberals. To put it in political jingoism, Trump successfully converted the majority White American to true blooded nationalists.
As stated above, the insecurity of the majority leads to ultra-nationalism. However, articles and documents on the former in my limited reading is in modicum. Ultra-Nationalism then leads to fascism which according to me is not any different from terrorism. A borderline ultra-nationalist has already taken his first step towards fascism. When Hitler started out, all he had to do was to instil a sense of fear and insecurity among the majority, mix it properly with hyper-patriotism and very strong propaganda through the then media like print and radio to take over the reins of Germany. The genocide that followed is common knowledge. The following quote by Hermann Göring in an interview during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, 18th April 1946, emboldens my argument:
All you have to do tell them they
Are being attacked and denounce the paci…
