Whites Only -- Like When America Was Great.

The myth of past greatness has been part of western culture for thousands of years in the fantasy of Eden and it's handmaiden myths of a messiah who will restore past bliss -- or worse, past glory.

But some kind of glorious America of the past is found in most political rhetoric today and particularly that of the Right and it can't help but to remind me of  the speeches of Mussolini and Hitler and previous would-be Roman Emperors seeking to restore a totalitarian empire.  I do have to wonder what grand utopia the Republicans want to restore us to.  Every rightist I've talked to or heard from gets evasive when questioned but I suspect it was some magical time before the Emancipation Proclamation if not before the establishment of the United States itself.

For those of us who would rather not return to the glory days of the Civil War, yet who continue to espouse the fundamentals of the Confederacy it must be difficult to be specific.  I'd love to ask Texas Governor Abbott if he sees a difference between having 50 semi-independent States and a United States with the sort of constitution he proposes to replace the existing one where any state is able to ignore any laws or court rulings they please.  Is he proposing that Texas revert to an independent Republic?  OK by me, but apparently not with the mainstream GOP. I doubt enough of the rest of the country will go along with it, but perhaps he'd like to nullify the requirements  before the liberty to do so is voted down, or perhaps he envisions another Fort Sumter or armed uprising of beer-bellied good old boys led by Ted Nugent.

Others are more honest about the ideal America, one where everyone is of Western European ancestry and preferably of the blonde "Aryan" variety. Jared Taylor, editor of the supremacist magazine American Renaissance has been annoying Iowans with robo-calls in support of Donald Trump by saying:

 “We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture,”  

Now there's a statement that assumes that such people are of the same mind as mindless racists like him.  Smart and Educated are a couple of terms that seem a bit out of place to say the least.  And of course the phrase "our culture" is evidently a rather personal and racist one as well as ignorant since many European whites are  Muslim.  One suspects that Mr. Taylor would have problems with White European Jews or even Catholics as well, but I don't want to deprive him of the opportunity to tell us who might be eligible to remain after Donald Trump is elected.

Taylor's party calls itself the American Freedom Party, predictable when you notice how much people out to replace the United States with a racist confederacy of  race and religion based political entities tend to use the term "freedom." And also, of course the epithet "Patriot" which is usually defined as someone with a lot of guns, but getting back to getting back to when "America was great" which is Donald Trump's stated ambition and one he shares with the Nazis and other radical nitwits:  is anyone stupid enough not to see the agenda?  Is Trump's idea of  past greatness remotely similar to ours?  Is it the same Eden as advocated by Lester Maddox, George Wallace or any of the unreconstructed, die-hard rebels and secessionists waiting for the South to rise again?

Why aren't the media asking?  Why aren't we taking time out from the squabbling about gun shows and police brutality and calling ourselves racists -- why can't we put aside the petty witch hunts and ask if a vote for Trump or Cruz a vote for Jefferson Davis, is a vote for racism, anarchy and a Second Civil War?

I'm afraid not.  I'm afraid our narcissistic self-righteousness will prevail and we son't vote and we'll hand our future over to the ugly past because we think Hillary's e-mails were, like Benghazi and Whitewater and Hot Lips Lewinsky, much more important.