Ian Haney López: Is Trump's Blatant Racism an Opportunity to Build Class Solidarity?

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

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Is Trump's Blatant Racism an Opportunity to Build Class Solidarity?

Posted May 11, 2016

Interview with Ian Haney López, John H. Boalt professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted by Scott Harris

Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump – now the presumptive Republican party presidential candidate – has since he launched his campaign consistently employed racist, xenophobic and misogynist rhetoric to fire up a base made up mostly of white, middle-aged men. He has attacked Mexicans as rapists and murderers, advocated a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. and insulted women based on sexist stereotypes.

As a result, Trump will be entering the general election campaign with highly unfavorable views among many different constituency groups. He has a 70 percent unfavorable image among women, 86 percent from black voters and 75 percent from Latinos according to recent polls.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Ian Haney López, John H. Boalt professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley and author of the book, "Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class." Here, López examines the role racial prejudice and economic insecurity has played in drawing supporters to Trump's campaign and the opportunities in the 2016 election to build support for a progressive economic agenda. [Rush transcript]

IAN HANEY LÓPEZ: We're not saying that all of Trump's supporters are racists in that "hate every black person, put on a robe and burn a cross" sort of way – which is not to say that they're not out there. This is a candidate who has attracted endorsements from former Klan wizard David Duke and other white nationalists. So there are some of the people who rally behind Trump who are these out-and-out bigot, racist types. But that's not what we're talking about.

For the most part, what we're talking about is a sort of pervasive, racial fear that predominates among a significant segment of the white population and it is a race through which they see the society and through which they see politics and the economy. And these are the people that Trump is speaking to. And what's important to realize is that this isn't Trump tapping into some sort of subterranean fears that nobody knew was there. This is instead, Trump taking advantage of groundwork that has been laid by the Republican party for the last 50 years.

And so here, I want to pause and just give some really startling numbers. Who are the GOP supporters today? They draw roughly 93-94 percent of their support from white voters. And 98 percent of their elected officials are white. This is a party that for the last 50 years has constituted itself around a racial narrative that says to Americans, "The biggest threat in your lives come from other poor people of color, it comes from the liberal institutions like unions and like government that support poor people of color, worry about them, hate government, trust instead the big corporations and the very rich." That's the basic narrative the Republicans have been using for 50 years and that's exactly the narrative Trump has tapped into in this latest election cycle.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Professor López, Reagan, Romney and Trump all have spouted similar rhetoric of a country of makers vs. takers. And from your point of view, how do progressive organizations and politicians counter the conscious strategy to stoke racism and scapegoatism where many working class poor and white citizens end up voting against their own economic self-interest and for the very wealthiest one percent and Wall Street's agenda?

IAN HANEY LÓPEZ: In the United States, class has been constituted through race, and race functions as a weapon to be used in class struggles. And for progressives to respond, we need a unified story that we can tell to whites and people of color sufficient to get these groups to form a new multi-racial progressive coalition. And that story has to be something like this: It's race that's been used to divide so that we hand over power to the very rich and until all of us commit getting past racism, none of us can hope to restore a country in which people is wielded by the people, rather than by corporations. We need a story that combines a simultaneous emphasis on racial justice and economic justice.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Given that racial prejudice has been part of American culture for so many decades, are you optimistic that we can get to a place where we can down the line, transcend race and bring people together, unify them on these economic issues that have for so long gone in a direction not in the interest of the majority of the American public?

IAN HANEY LÓPEZ: This may be the first moment in the history of the country in which we can say to whites, racism is really bad for you and your children. Up until now, most whites have thought about racism that at best is a moral issue that they need to engage with, but not as something that's fundamental to the well-being of their children. But that's changed. If you are a member of the white working class today, you need to look around and say, "Wow, racism has been devastating for communities of color, but it's been devastating for me, too, because it explains what happened to my job, what happened to my pension, and why my kids' future is more bleak than my own." That's truly revolutionary. For the United States to arrive at a point where everybody in the country, including whites, starts to say racism is bad for all of us, that I think is what's different about 2016, and about 1964. That's what I think makes it possible for us to think, you know, this is the pivot, this is the moment when the whole country turns against racism and begins what must be a decades-long effort to finally get past race as a source of division in order to build a truly progressive, multi-racial coalition.

Read Ian Haney López' article: "Understanding What Makes Donald Trump Voters Tick: Is It Just Racism?,", In These Times, April 7, 2016.