The Return Of Donald Trump - The New Prince Of Camelot And His All White White House

The return of Donald Trump to the White House was not the insurrectionist nightmare progressives feared, but something far worse - whiteness redux and a goodbye to race, gender, and ethnicity.  Nothing could be as bad, nothing more horrific and brutal than the dismantling of all they had fought for, wrangled, and marched.  The days of the black man, the transgender, and the woman were now numbered.  No more rap music in the halls, refried beans and enchiladas in the kitchen, and drag queens in the Oval Office. It was a return to the Fifties, the most hated decade in American history. 

Bob Muzelle never saw this coming.  He suspected something gross but never such a social reversal.  Only in fleeting moments did he sense it - a white, tinselly White House with arm candy, diamond brooches, and straight men with slicked back blonde hair, tailored suits, and chit chat about investment instruments, the bond market, and talks about weekends at Mar-el-Lago with the boss.  

Bob shook his head, trying to shake the vision; but it remained, at first a niggling possibility, then a recurrent, troubling idea, and finally a reality.  Could it possibly be? he wondered.

Bob and his colleagues had prepared for a Trump victory, restocked the armory, readied the troops, and marshalled ordnance and supplies.  They would take the fight to the doors of 1700 and never leave until the anti-Christ had been sent to hell where he came from.

Yet in all their preparation, they never anticipated this - this reversal, this unconscionable counter-revolution.  They were expecting rollbacks of policy - fracking for oil, gas, and rare earths; new pipelines and refineries, and retraction of all subsidies and tax incentives for electric vehicles. A dead-in-the-water burial of affirmative action, a restoration or Confederate statues, and a return to Robber Baron capitalism; but this? 

The febrile dream was of pure white Barbies and Kens in white dresses and suits on the South Lawn, tea parties with DAR matrons, American flags everywhere, John Phillip Sousa marches. 

 

Again Bob shook his head.  It could simply not be true.  No one could ignore the diversity of America and toss the rainbow palette in the dust bin, send women back to the kitchen, allow abuse and misogyny to reign again, to reestablish slavery and consign the black man to a permanent ghetto; but then again, the man could easily have it in his twisted, deformed soul. 

The Trump camp, of course, had no such measures in mind.  They simply wanted their version of Camelot - that fantasy world of high culture invited to the White House by Jackie and Jack, patrician caretakers of the Old Guard, a world of aristocratic tastes and preferences.  Jack had made it clear that he wanted a Cabinet of his own kind - Harvard intellectuals whose judgment he could trust implicitly; men with honor, integrity, and above all intelligence.  La creme de la creme of American society, a truly Hamiltonian vision of democracy where the unwashed are buffered by the elite and enlightenment never stained by popular opinion. 

Trumpists wanted something of the same order, although not so rich.  Theirs would be a Jeffersonian, democratic to the core, the people are always right regime, one to which showgirls, B-girls, glitz, glamour, and low-brow fashion would be welcome. It would be a restoration of a particular kind of whiteness - giving the cracker his due, as one New York Times reporter wrote - a rejection of the elite white cabals of Boston, Park Avenue, Rittenhouse Square, and Georgetown and replacing them with real Americans, those with bass boats, gun racks, squirrel skinners, and Walmart dresses. 

The black man? Excluded from tea parties and dances? Not invited to Easter Egg rolls where hundreds of little white children, all dressed in cute suits and pinafores?  Perhaps, but would little white children be graciously welcomed at an all-black party in Anacostia?  The Egg Roll would simply be a reply to the decades zero sum racial politics - to raise up the black man, one must denigrate the white - and racial exclusivity, black lunch tables and bleachers.  

 

There would be no racism or racial prejudice in the new Administration  In fact, by doing away, once and for all, with the entitlements, affirmative action mandates, preferential treatments and antebellum patriarchy perpetuated by progressives, and under the newly-liberated free market of enterprise and opportunity, patronizing generosity would be a thing of the past.  

It was simply that white America needed its place in the sun after so much banging on about diversity, inclusivity, and the glory of multi-culturalism.  The Donald's crew understood the changing demographics of America and knew that the country would no longer resemble that of times past, and so be it.  It was simply time for a white celebration long overdo. 

'Goddam his white cracker ass', Bob shouted to the mirror as one of these perverted images jumped front and center as he was shaving.  'Muthafucka!'  

Of course none of this was planned.  There were no directives from staff headquarters, no approved lists of appointments or invitees, no specific initiatives to replace diversity as a modus operandi. It just happened as candidates were sought and vetted for loyalty, talent, ability, and promise without regard to race or ethnicity.  Of course the planners knew that given the demographics and the still underperforming black and Hispanic populations,; and the refusal of the new Administration to consider race as a defining factor in selection, most candidates would be white. 

The White House would simply be the showcase for the merchandise within - the conservative policies which would undo race-based preferences and value only talent, creativity, and intellectual acumen as criteria - as it had been, ironically, under JFK. 

'Racist morons', shouted Bob's colleagues at a meeting of Progressives For Social Reform, a group of old-time Samuel Gompers Upper West Side Jewish liberals and Ivy League educated Freedom Rider, Pettis Bridge, March on Washington integrationists.  It was enough that Trump was quickly dismantling the very architecture of social reform so painstakingly put in place by Bob and his fellow progressives; but to see the whitewashing of the White House and the brazen, insensitive rejection of the very precepts of inclusion, diversity, and equity they had fought so hard for was a kick in the pants.  

 

But what to do?  Although radical progressive militias had been mobilized to counter the moves of the new Administration in health, education, welfare, environment, and energy, the White House stood as a white shibboleth, a bastion of preserved white entitlement. 

'We can march', said Abe Gottlieb who had marched in the Sixties until his feet were sore; but despite murmurs of approval, most of the audience knew that the new man at 1700 would pay no attention whatsoever.  His jackbooted storm troopers would firehose them just like the white bullies of Mississippi. 

Once Trump was installed in the Oval Office, progressives like Bob Muzelle could only stand back and lick their wounds.  They had bitched and moaned, whinged and whined for four years to no avail.  The Big Man was back with a vengeance.  They hated him more than ever, but their impotence was plain.  A few whimpers as the parade of glitzy women sashayed into Trump's home, but little more.  They could only wait; but this time the tide had turned and they and their crowd was already drifting out to sea.