Trump Reacts to Russia’s Help the Way Whites React to Whiteness
Russian Fragility Is White Fragility; Russian Privilege Is White Privilege
The president personifies whiteness.
According to CNN, “Trump became irate in a meeting with outgoing acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last week for allowing the information about Russia's meddling efforts to be included in the briefing…” Russia wants to reelect Trump, and Trump is fragile about his Russian privilege.
Russian fragility and Russian privilege are like white fragility and white privilege. Trump cannot tolerate conversations about Russia; Trump cannot admit that Russia prefers him; Trump cannot admit that Russia helped to elect him, and Trump cannot handle the personal and public recognition that his political existence is a fragile fraud. Many whites respond to whiteness the way Trump responds to Russia.
Trump is in an alliance with Russia, and thinkers like Steve Martinot and Joel Olson describe whiteness as a “peculiar collusion, a cross-class alliance, and a class collaboration.” Martinot writes that colonists invented whiteness as a “class collaboration between the poor whites of the control stratum and the colony’s elite.”
In his book The Abolition of White Democracy, Olson adds, “the foundation of the American racial order is a cross-class alliance between the dominant class and one section of the working class. This alliance confers privileges to its members, in exchange for which they guarantee the social stability necessary for the accumulation of capital.”
To paraphrase and apply the historical record from Martinot and Olson—the current American political order is an international alliance between a dominant state actor, Russia, and one political party—The Trump Party. This alliance confers privileges to its members, in exchange for which they guarantee the social instability necessary for the accumulation of social and political capital.
People with power must destroy and prevent white alliances.
The plot is the same: Whiteness provides the stability and passivity for the capitalist class to accrue capital, and the presidency of a self-proclaimed “stable genius” provides the instability and unrest for Russia to accrue capital.
Historically, many elites have been foes of democracy, and Russia is no different. Trump is a poor white; Trump is a mediocre white who looks up to Putin; Trump is a tool; Trump is a puppet; Trump is a colonized subject; Trump is anti-democratic; white identity is the same.
The Trump-Russia alliance is a moral choice just as James Baldwin said being white is “a moral choice.” White workers and the capitalist class should conflict, just as the White House and the Kremlin should conflict. In both cases, privilege sanctioned by the state mollifies conflicts.
Ibram Kendi believes “the heartbeat of racism is denial.” Denial is also the heartbeat of whiteness, and denial is also the heartbeat of the Trump-Russia alliance. Most whites refuse to admit and act against white privilege, which makes them complicit in the white alliance. And Trump’s refusal to admit and act against his Russian privilege makes him complicit in the Trump-Russia alliance.
For justice, the goals and strategies are similar: Intelligence communities cannot hope and wait for Trump or whites to admit their privilege and act against their alliance. People with power must destroy and prevent white alliances. “How and When” are not questions here. People know how; the time is now.