Free Daily Headlines :

  • COVID-19
  • Vaccine Info
  • Money
  • Politics
  • Education
  • Health
  • Justice
  • More
    • Environment
    • Economic Development
    • Gaming
    • Investigations
    • Social Services
    • TRANSPORTATION
  • Opinion
    • CT Viewpoints
    • CT Artpoints
DONATE
Reflecting Connecticut’s Reality.
    COVID-19
    Vaccine Info
    Money
    Politics
    Education
    Health
    Justice
    More
    Environment
    Economic Development
    Gaming
    Investigations
    Social Services
    TRANSPORTATION
    Opinion
    CT Viewpoints
    CT Artpoints

LET�S GET SOCIAL

Show your love for great stories and out standing journalism
CT VIEWPOINTS -- opinions from around Connecticut

There are little Trump rallies in Connecticut, too

  • CT Viewpoints
  • by Catherine McNicol Stock
  • June 19, 2020
  • View as "Clean Read" "Exit Clean Read"

It is hard to imagine a good reason for President Trump to hold a rally as planned this week.  So clear are the risks of contracting the novel coronavirus in crowded indoor arenas that the Trump campaign has included a legal notice limiting its liability should anyone who attends become ill.

Catherine McNicol Stock

Worse still —and equally as deliberate, given the calls for him to change locations— was the campaign’s initial decision to hold the rally in Tulsa, the site of what appears to be the deadliest race massacre in U.S. history. The campaign changed the rally’s date from the 19th to the 20th, likely to avoid the “bad optics” of holding a rally on Juneteenth, the holiday that marks the end of slavery. Even so, the campaign’s perceived “good optics” will remain: tens of thousands of supporters in red MAGA hats and no masks cheering a president who has called white nationalists “very fine people,” halted immigration from many parts of the world, and called Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs.” All this in a city where almost exactly a century ago white residents murdered as many as 300 of their black neighbors.

As troubling as the event in Tulsa no doubt would be, a more difficult truth faces white Americans who would never even consider attending a Trump rally. Since his Electoral College victory four years ago, Trump supporters across the country, even in the bluest of states, have begun to hold their own rallies, sometimes consciously and sometimes with the privilege of not realizing they are doing so.

As they reach into every community and are rarely seen as political events, these little rallies everywhere demonstrate Trump’s wide-ranging cultural influence. Some are new and easy to spot. Others seem familiar; perhaps “just the way things have always been.”  Either way, given the events of the last month and the stakes for our democracy, Americans must stop organizing and attending these little rallies just as surely as they must reject the president in November.

It’s easy to see the politics of some of these ersatz Trump events when they are held in red states –the huge annual biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, for example.  Each August the bikers thunder into town to crowd bars, strip clubs, and concert venues; vendors hawk “lock her up” tee shirts, American and Confederate flag apparel, and Trump merchandise of all kinds. This year, even as the country battles the coronavirus, many will be back, having pledged to return even if the city tried to cancel the rally. Concerned about public safety, the city of Sturgis will likely exclude some vendors and limit indoor capacity; southern rock and country stars, for example, will be replaced by cover bands.  But if #sturgisison, the full-throttle expression of Trump-era culture will still be on too.

Although quite a bit smaller in scale, Trump rallies also take place in blue states. The shoreline towns of Connecticut, for example, are well known as white enclaves, although some are far less well-heeled than others. Only a handful went for Trump in 2016. Even so, reports sprinkled into local papers as early as the first week of April that groups of residents were gathering on local beaches without wearing masks or making any attempt at social distancing. They were untroubled by, and perhaps even welcomed, the hostility that greeted them. Yet throughout the spring, whenever it wasn’t raining –and sometimes when it was– many of these little rallies continued.

Other little rallies on the shoreline have mimicked the President’s outspoken white nationalism. For example, a homeowner has built his own wall: a chain link fence that blocks a walkway to the waterfront, seemingly in direct violation of Connecticut statutes preserving public beach access. These statutes themselves were the outcome of years of local civil rights protest to “save America’s beaches.” It is impossible to know why the homeowner built the fence. But we can surmise that it has nothing to do with the goals of creating equity and justice in their town.

If whites can see that these overt displays of white nationalism and anti-statism work to embed and normalize the president’s values in even the bluest of communities, we should consider seeing more ordinary events through new eyes too. Is that all-white summer cookout your neighborhood holds every year a fun tradition or a relic of redlining?  Is your team at work all white because “it has been so hard” to recruit or retain people of color or because no one has tried? Is that school, pool, gym, club, or team where few or no African Americans attend or belong really as “good” as everyone says?

I would never attend a Trump rally. Neither would most of my friends, professional colleagues, or neighbors. But perhaps it is time for white people to recognize the fact that Trump’s values, particularly on race, are on display in many other places and in many other forms. Time to tear up our tickets.

In the context of the lived realities of African Americans and other people of color from 1619 to this very day, any gathering that is not explicitly working toward healing and equity is a Trump rally by another name.

Catherine McNicol Stock is the Barbara Zacceho Kohn ’72 Professor of History at Connecticut College. She is the author of Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain and Main Street in Crisis: The Great Depression and the Old Middle Class on the Northern Plains.

 

CTViewpoints welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines and submit your commentary here.

Sign up for CT Mirror's free daily news summary.

Free to Read. Not Free to Produce.

The Connecticut Mirror is a nonprofit newsroom. 90% of our revenue comes from people like you. If you value our reporting please consider making a donation. You'll enjoy reading CT Mirror even more knowing you helped make it happen.

YES, I'LL DONATE TODAY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SEE WHAT READERS SAID

RELATED STORIES
Connecticut has to stop phoning in evictions
by Nathan Leys, Darren Pruslow, Shelley White and Sally Zanger

In early October, a woman sent a desperate fax to the housing court handling her case. “I’ve been trying to reach someone since 9/29/20 calling daily. I had a remote hearing scheduled for 10/1/20 I signed up for teams [the Judicial Branch’s remote courtroom software] and was unable to figure out how to find my case. I tried emailing the 2 names at the bottom of my notice for instructions, but the email came back not delivered.” She was too late. At her hearing four days before, the judge had already entered judgment against her.

CT elected officials choosing politics over Danbury students
by The L.E.A.D. Executive Board

Last month in his executive budget, Gov. Ned Lamont proposed funding for an Open Choice Program that would bus 50 elementary school children out of Danbury to receive an education. At the same time, he excluded Danbury Prospect Charter School from his budget. This decision was a severe disappointment to all who have fought hard to bring the charter school to Danbury. What’s worse, it clearly signals the intentions of the Danbury Democratic delegation: to ignore the demands of Black and brown constituents who have spent years advocating for Danbury Prospect.

Will electricity provide the promised fix?
by Robert Orr

Our new president speaks passionately about how carbon-free electricity will fix climate change. But will it? For sure, this past year dropped a sledgehammer of awareness for an environmental fragility that heretofore escaped our attention. Repeated hurricanes, tornados, droughts, fires, and the alarming outcomes of virus(es) rivet our attention. Something’s not right. Of course, they’re […]

Facts, not fear, should guide Connecticut’s cannabis future
by Paul Armentano

Here’s an important fact. Some two-thirds of Americans – including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans – say that the adult use of marijuana ought to be legal. That’s according to nationwide surveys by Gallup, Pew, and other respected pollsters. In Connecticut, 63 percent of residents “support the legalization of recreational marijuana,” according to polling data compiled by Sacred Heart University and the Hartford Courant.

Right to counsel is just as much a racial justice issue as a housing policy issue
by Pearson Caldwell

Despite the state and federal moratoriums on eviction, nearly 3,000 Connecticut families have faced eviction in the past 10 months. Over half of these families were Black or Latinx, even though these groups combined comprise less than a quarter of the overall population. The stop-gap measures pursued by the state are not enough. Connecticut needs a statewide right to counsel for tenants facing eviction to address the burning housing and racial justice crisis across the state.

Support Our Work

Show your love for great stories and outstanding journalism.

$
Select One
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
  • Once
Artpoint painter
CT ViewpointsCT Artpoints
Opinion Connecticut has to stop phoning in evictions
by Nathan Leys, Darren Pruslow, Shelley White and Sally Zanger

In early October, a woman sent a desperate fax to the housing court handling her case. “I’ve been trying to reach someone since 9/29/20 calling daily. I had a remote hearing scheduled for 10/1/20 I signed up for teams [the Judicial Branch’s remote courtroom software] and was unable to figure out how to find my case. I tried emailing the 2 names at the bottom of my notice for instructions, but the email came back not delivered.” She was too late. At her hearing four days before, the judge had already entered judgment against her.

Opinion CT elected officials choosing politics over Danbury students
by The L.E.A.D. Executive Board

Last month in his executive budget, Gov. Ned Lamont proposed funding for an Open Choice Program that would bus 50 elementary school children out of Danbury to receive an education. At the same time, he excluded Danbury Prospect Charter School from his budget. This decision was a severe disappointment to all who have fought hard to bring the charter school to Danbury. What’s worse, it clearly signals the intentions of the Danbury Democratic delegation: to ignore the demands of Black and brown constituents who have spent years advocating for Danbury Prospect.

Opinion Will electricity provide the promised fix?
by Robert Orr

Our new president speaks passionately about how carbon-free electricity will fix climate change. But will it? For sure, this past year dropped a sledgehammer of awareness for an environmental fragility that heretofore escaped our attention. Repeated hurricanes, tornados, droughts, fires, and the alarming outcomes of virus(es) rivet our attention. Something’s not right. Of course, they’re […]

Opinion Facts, not fear, should guide Connecticut’s cannabis future
by Paul Armentano

Here’s an important fact. Some two-thirds of Americans – including majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans – say that the adult use of marijuana ought to be legal. That’s according to nationwide surveys by Gallup, Pew, and other respected pollsters. In Connecticut, 63 percent of residents “support the legalization of recreational marijuana,” according to polling data compiled by Sacred Heart University and the Hartford Courant.

Artwork Grand guidance
by Anne:Gogh

In a world of systemic oppression aimed towards those of darker skintones – representation matters. We are more than our equity elusive environments, more than numbers in a prison and much more than victims of societal dispositions. This piece depicts a melanated young man draped in a cape ascending high above multiple forms of oppression. […]

Artwork Shea
by Anthony Valentine

Shea is a story about race and social inequalities that plague America. It is a narrative that prompts the question, “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in new skin?”

Artwork The Declaration of Human Rights
by Andres Chaparro

Through my artwork I strive to create an example of ideas that reflect my desire to raise social consciousness, and cultural awareness. Jazz music is the catalyst to all my work, and plays a major influence in each piece of work.”

Artwork ‘A thing of beauty. Destroy it forever’
by Richard DiCarlo | Derby

During times like these it’s often fun to revisit something familiar and approach things with a different slant. I have been taking some Pop culture and Art masterpieces and applying the vintage 1960’s and 70’s classic figures (Fisher Price, little people) to the make an amusing pieces. Here is my homage to Fisher -Price, Yellow […]

Twitter Feed
A Twitter List by CTMirror

Engage

  • Reflections Tickets & Sponsorships
  • Events
  • Donate
  • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • Submit to Viewpoints
  • Submit to ArtPoints
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Commenting Guidelines
  • Legal Notices
  • Contact Us

About

  • About CT Mirror
  • Announcements
  • Board
  • Staff
  • Sponsors and Funders
  • Donors
  • Friends of CT Mirror
  • History
  • Financial
  • Policies
  • Strategic Plan

Opportunity

  • Advertising and Sponsorship
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Use of Photography
  • Work for Us

Go Deeper

  • Steady Habits Podcast
  • Economic Indicator Dashboard
  • Five Things

The Connecticut News Project, Inc. 1049 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105. Phone: 860-218-6380

© Copyright 2021, The Connecticut News Project. All Rights Reserved. Website by Web Publisher PRO