Frank Hammer, UAW/GM retiree, Detroit
These are the flags the Trump supporters were carrying at the Unite_the_Right_rally in Charlottesville, VA on August 11, 2017, the same rally where Trump blustered that there were “fine people” on both sides. Presumably these were some of those fine people he was referring to. These people were in Charlottesville with two purposes - to rally the White Supremacist movement, and denounce the removal of the town’s statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was there the next day that Heather Heyer was murdered by a white racist ramming his car at high speed into a march of counter-protestors. These people can’t wait for Trump to win.
Trump has never denounced these flags. Be prepared to see him with them, if he’s elected, and for the ascendancy of these fine people. They will resurrect the 70+ Confederate statues where they’ve been removed, and then some. At the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026, look to a fine Confederate celebration in the Capitol, marking their ascendancy after 150+ years of trying.
The battle we are witnessing is not one between “Republicans” and “Democrats.” What is unfolding is the culmination of a gravitational pull by the Right, resulting in a realignment of political forces in the U.S. The ultra-Right has taken over the Republican Party. The Republicans who were once dominant have been driven out, or left voluntarily. Many are embracing Kamala Harris, and are being welcomed by the Democrats.
Just as Trump hasn’t appeared in public with a display of confederate flags, the ultra-Right is not prepared to rename the Republican party. But when they do, don’t be surprised if they call themselves the “new” Confederate Party, because that’s what they’ve become. We don’t have to wait for them; we should call out the Republican Party now, for what it’s become.
This development has, in turn, left a vacuum where the Republican Party once stood. The Democratic Party is rapidly shifting to the Right, to fill it in. And they are bringing on board the Republican stalwarts who, not too long ago, were identified as war criminals (think Dick Cheney). The Democratic Party is replacing the Republican Party. The Left wing of the Democratic Party (and those to the left of the Democrats) have to fill in the space that the Democrats are leaving behind - with a new party of our own - maybe the “New Democratic
Party.” We’re not anywhere near there yet.
The traitorous Nazi and Confederate flags displayed in Charlottesville have never been denounced. With a Trump victory, they will become normalized and even mainstream. It is we who will be branded the “traitors.” Our country will witness a seismic shift.
Trump’s Confederate Party is one that merges fundamentalist Christian religion with ultra-Right political ideology. Gone is the “secular” Republican party. Re-emerging is the religious foundation normalizing the legitimacy of slavery & patriarchy, and the sanctity of secession. In the words of a prominent white Southern theologian in 1850:
“The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders—they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground—Christianity and Atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity at stake.”
Those words laid the groundwork for the Civil War. What do they portend today? Those who make light of the difference between the two parties contending for the White House should re-examine their perceptions of our political landscape, and reach into U.S. history to understand what’s at stake. Trump/Vance with their 2025 playbook make abundantly clear their intent to impose the Confederacy with the police and military, if necessary, all the while trashing the working class’ right to organize, the movements of oppressed peoples of color and women for human rights, the protections won in the fight to defend LGBTQ, immigrant and indigenous peoples’ rights, rights to public education, retirement security, healthcare, an environment that will sustain humanity and all living beings, and more.
That’s why I am voting for Kamala, notwithstanding that she will be the first (Black) woman in 250 years to preside over the U.S. Let the would-be Confederates chew on that.
Frank Hammer is the son of German refugees, some of whose family members were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.
If you missed the documentary "Trump's Unholy Alliance," view it here
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