Anti-racism protests in the
United States have rapidly evolved into a promotion of the ideas championed by
the Democratic Party. It was no longer a question of fighting for equality in
law for all or challenging the prejudices of certain police officers, but of
reopening a cultural conflict at the risk of a new Civil War.
Protests
across the West against racism in the United States are masking the evolution
of the conflict there. It has evolved from a questioning of the remnants of
black slavery to a conflict that could challenge the integrity of the country.
Last week I pointed out that the United States should have disbanded
after the break-up of the Soviet Union to which it was attached. However, the
imperialist project (the “Endless War”) led by George W. Bush had made it
possible to revive the country after the attacks of September 11, 2001. I also
pointed out that in recent decades, the population had moved around a great
deal in order to regroup by cultural affinity [1]. Inter-racial marriages were again becoming
rare. I concluded that the integrity of the country would be threatened when
non-black minorities entered the challenge [2].
This is precisely what we are
witnessing today. The conflict is no longer between blacks and whites, since
whites have become the majority in some anti-racist demonstrations, Hispanics
and Asians have joined the processions, and the Democratic Party is now
involved.
Since Bill Clinton’s term in
office, the Democratic Party has identified with the process of financial
globalization; a position that the Republican Party belatedly supported,
without ever fully adopting it. Donald Trump represents a third path: that of
the “American dream”, i.e. entrepreneurship as opposed to finance. He got
elected by declaring America First! which
did not refer to the pro-Nazi isolationist movement of the 1930s as claimed,
but to the relocation of jobs as later verified. He was certainly supported by
the Republican Party, but remains a “Jacksonian” and not a “conservative” at
all.
As historian Kevin Phillips –
Richard Nixon’s electoral adviser – has shown, Anglo-Saxon culture gave rise to
three successive civil wars [3] :
the first English Civil War,
known as the “Great Rebellion” (which pitted Lord Cromwell against Charles I
1642-1651);
the second English Civil War
or “War of Independence from the United States” (1775-1783);
and the Third Anglo-Saxon
Civil War or “Civil War” in the United States (1861-1865).
the first English Civil War,
known as the “Great Rebellion” (which pitted Lord Cromwell against Charles I
1642-1651); the second English Civil War
or “War of Independence from the United States” (1775-1783); and the Third Anglo-Saxon
Civil War or “Civil War” in the United States (1861-1865).
What we are witnessing today
could lead to the fourth. This seems to be the view of former Secretary of
Defense General Jim Mattis, who recently told The Atlantic that
he was concerned about President Trump’s divisive rather than unifying
policies.
Let us go back to the history of the
United States to see where the sides are. Populist President Andrew Jackson
(1829-1837) vetoed the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) established by Alexander
Hamilton, one of the fathers of the Constitution, who favoured federalism
because he was violently opposed to democracy. Just as Jackson’s disciple,
Donald Trump, is today in opposition to the Fed.
Twenty years after Jackson,
came the “Civil War” to which today’s protesters all refer. According to them,
it pitted a slave South against a humanist North. The movement that began with
a racist news item (the lynching of black George Flyod by a white policeman
from Minneapolis) continues today with the destruction of statues of southern
generals, including Robert Lee. Actions of this type had already taken place in
2017 [4], but this time they are gaining momentum
and governors from the Democratic Party are participating.
However,
this narrative does not correspond at all to reality: at the beginning of the
Civil War, both sides were slavers, and at the end, both sides were
anti-slavers. The end of slavery owes nothing to the abolitionists and
everything to the need for both sides to enlist new soldiers.
The
Civil War pitted a rich, Catholic, agricultural South against a Protestant,
industrial North aspiring to make a fortune. It crystallized around the issue
of customs duties which the South believed should be set by the federal states,
but which the North intended to abolish between the federal states and have the
federal government determine.
Therefore,
in debunking the Southern symbols, the current demonstrators are not attacking
the remnants of slavery, but denouncing the Southern vision of the Union. It
was particularly unfair to attack General Lee, who had put an end to the Civil
War by refusing to pursue it with guerrilla warfare from the mountains and by
choosing national unity. In
any case, these degradations effectively pave the way for a fourth Anglo-Saxon
civil war.
Today the notions of South
and North no longer correspond to geographical realities: it would rather be
Dallas against New York and Los Angeles.
It is
not possible to choose the aspects of a country’s history that one considers
good and to destroy those that one considers bad without calling into question
everything that has been built on it.
In referring to Richard
Nixon’s 1968 election slogan, “Law and Order,”
President Donald Trump is not trying to preach racist hatred as many
commentators claim, but is returning to the thinking of the author of that
slogan, Kevin Philipps (quoted above). He still intends to make Andrew
Jackson’s thought triumph over Finance by relying on Southern culture and not
to cause the disintegration of his country.
President Donald Trump finds
himself in the situation Mikhail Gorbachev experienced at the end of the 1980s:
his country’s economy – not finance – has been in sharp decline for decades,
but his fellow citizens refuse to acknowledge the consequences [5]. The United States can only survive by
setting new goals. Such change is particularly difficult in times of recession.
Paradoxically,
Donald Trump is clinging to the “American dream” (i.e., the possibility of
making a fortune) when US society is stuck, the middle classes are
disappearing, and new immigrants are no longer European. At the same time only
its opponents (the Fed, Wall Street and Silicon Valley) are proposing a new
model, but at the expense of the masses.
The problem of the USSR was different,
but the situation was the same. Gorbachev failed and it was dissolved. It would
be surprising if the next US president, whoever he may be, succeeded.
—
[1] American Nations. A history of
the 11 rival regional cultures of North America, Colin Woodard,
Viking (2011).
[2] “USA:
Race riots and separatist temptations”, by Thierry Meyssan,
Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 1
June 2020.
[3] The Cousins’ Wars,
Kevin Philipps, Basic Books, 1999.
[4] “What
the mid-term elections tell us about US interior conflict”, by
Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 13 November 2018.
[5] “Trump,
the US version of Gorbatchev”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete
Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 30 January 2018.
French
intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace
Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in
daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last
two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.
The
articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is
cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial
purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).
