When the Senate failed to confirm Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as a federal judge in 1986, many white supremacists believed it was important to control blacks in order to more fully exploit their labor. Exploiting labor requires close proximity and, according to the mythology of the white South about blacks, rigid control. As a son of Alabama, Sessions bought into this myth and as the U.S. attorney for Alabama, Sessions did his best to help maintain the traditional control that thwarted blacks in the South.
Sessions was not confirmed because witnesses testified that as an U.S. Attorney in Alabama, Sessions had regularly used racist and demeaning language to address a black colleague and used his office to suppress black voting through a questionable prosecution. After his confirmation had been defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee by a bi-partisan vote of 10 to 8, Sessions used his office to retaliate against two of the witnesses against him.
But, as Sessions was failing to win Senate confirmation in 1986, white supremacists also were changing their focus from control of nonwhites to separation from nonwhites. Noticing the increased number of nonwhite documented and undocumented immigrants, white supremacists and their supporters once again fixed more of their ethnic resentment on immigrants than they had since the early part of the twentieth century. Even the use of police power, always used to control black behavior, changed from a labor exploitation mechanism to an incarceration, removal, and stigmatizing strategy. Unlike earlier times in which ethnic and black resentment was accepted, however, white supremacists now felt the need to clothe their animosity in various forms of justification.
Sessions was not confirmed because witnesses testified that as an U.S. Attorney in Alabama, Sessions had regularly used racist and demeaning language to address a black colleague and used his office to suppress black voting through a questionable prosecution. After his confirmation had been defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee by a bi-partisan vote of 10 to 8, Sessions used his office to retaliate against two of the witnesses against him.
But, as Sessions was failing to win Senate confirmation in 1986, white supremacists also were changing their focus from control of nonwhites to separation from nonwhites. Noticing the increased number of nonwhite documented and undocumented immigrants, white supremacists and their supporters once again fixed more of their ethnic resentment on immigrants than they had since the early part of the twentieth century. Even the use of police power, always used to control black behavior, changed from a labor exploitation mechanism to an incarceration, removal, and stigmatizing strategy. Unlike earlier times in which ethnic and black resentment was accepted, however, white supremacists now felt the need to clothe their animosity in various forms of justification.
White supremacists now claim that undocumented immigrants of color are criminal because they either entered the country without documentation or overstayed their documented stay. Moreover, they attribute crimes to undocumented immigrants despite statistical evidence to the contrary. White supremacists also attribute negative trends and conditions, such as the opiate epidemic, to the presence of undocumented immigrants, even though the opiates that are abused are manufactured in the U.S. Finally, they claim that recent undocumented immigrants do not have a tradition of democracy and are unable or unwilling to fully assimilate in U.S. society, like earlier immigrants, although the available evidence contradicts this assertion.
The underlying ethnic resentment underlying these deceptive claims is made clear by white supremacist, Steve Bannon. Bannon has claimed, falsely, that two-thirds or more of Silicon Valley CEOs are Asians, and that U.S engineering schools are full of students from South Asia. Bannon has made it clear that he believes that the number of legal immigrants in the U.S. is undermining “civic society,” despite what might be their positive effect on the economy. This suggests that Bannon believes the presence of immigrants in the U.S., regardless of their legal status and their contribution to the economy, will degrade the quality of civic culture. This belief is the very essence of white nationalism and can only be remedied by removing the offenders.
But, Bannon has gone further than decrying the presence of immigrants contributing to the U.S. economy. He uses an allegory of the invasion and destruction of white Western societies by nonwhites to explain immigration to the U.S. In this allegory, described in the openly racist book, Camp of the Saints, nonwhite immigrants invade Christian countries and subject the white inhabitants to various forms of degrading behavior and sexual deviancy. The success of these nonwhite invaders is aided by the whites’ loss of belief in their racial and cultural superiority. The conclusion is the rise of a group of white defenders who kill a million starving nonwhite refugees to preserve white Christian culture. Genocide in defense of white Christian culture may, in this allegory, be necessary.
Sessions shares this anti-immigrant and white supremacist ideology with Steve Bannon. As Emily Bazelon points out, they see the U.S.’s increasing nonwhite demographic profile as its primary threat. Sessions, for example, authored a 25 page memo, using suspect data, to argue that both undocumented and documented immigration had reduced opportunities for employment and upward social mobility. Bannon and Sessions spent months working together, first, on how to oppose the Senate’s 2013 comprehensive immigration bill, and then, on how to enact their shared agenda on how to maintain a European and Christian identity in the U.S.
Sessions and Bannon intend for the Department of Justice (DoJ) to be the instrument by which white nationalism becomes the undergirding creed for U.S. domestic policy. There are at least three areas in which Sessions is planning to use DoJ to implement white nationalism: crime and policing; voting rights; and Russian interference in U.S. elections. One keystone of white nationalism, disputed by statistical facts, is that crime results from the presence of nonwhites. As Attorney General, Sessions will now be able to influence the portrait of nonwhite crime. He has already supported the white nationalist meme about the rising crime rate by deciding to end DoJ investigations of civil rights abuses by police departments.
Since the sixties the voting rights of nonwhites has been one of the most potent weapons available to fight white supremacy and, with the exception of the Reagan years, the DoJ has helped to secure those rights. Sessions has made it clear that DoJ will not help to expand voting rights, but instead intends to do as much as possible to roll back voting rights, in agreement with the Republican Party’s stated policy position. So far in a Texas voting case Sessions has changed from supporting the expansion of voting rights to limiting rights. In effect, the DoJ under Sessions has begun to support white nationalism.
With the fall of the Soviet Union white nationalists have engaged in a romance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Although some members of the Main Stream Media attribute this infatuation to Putin’s strong man image, white nationalists themselves cite their identification with Russia’s white population on the one hand and presumed assault by Muslim hordes on the other. In part for this reason, white nationalists accept, if not condone, Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Of course, white nationalists are also sanguine about the interference because it resulted in the election of Donald Trump. As the Attorney General, Sessions should oversee the DoJ’s investigation of this interference, but he has had to recuse himself because his untruthful testimony on behalf of Trump during his confirmation hearing made it clear he could not even pretend impartiality.
Nonetheless, it is not clear that he will either fully abide by his recusal in the Russian investigation or recuse himself from all other related investigations. To the extent that he is able to minimize findings of Russian culpability in the 2016 election, he will bolster white nationalism.
In spite of how white supremacist ideology has shifted from controlling the behavior of nonwhite people separating them from whites, Sessions was spared from having to justify his anti-immigration position. During his confirmation hearing for Attorney General of the U.S., Sessions’ supporters argued that his racist statements and behaviors that sunk his nomination for a federal judgeship should be excused because these incidents had occurred 30 years ago. Perversely, Sessions’s opponents neglected to point out that his acknowledged and continuing anti-immigrant position was consistent with white supremacists’ renewed anti-immigration stance. It is almost as though opponents of Sessions and much of the Main Stream Media were unaware of developments in white supremacist ideology.
It would be bad enough if Bannon’s role in the Trump Administration were limited to that of a White House senior advisor. But, given Sessions’s role as Attorney General, this Administration is truly frightening. The methods that Sessions (and Bannon) envision for removing nonwhites from the U.S. may seem mild compared to the genocide and other extreme measures used in other countries, but what they envision certainly qualifies as ethnic cleansing.
The underlying ethnic resentment underlying these deceptive claims is made clear by white supremacist, Steve Bannon. Bannon has claimed, falsely, that two-thirds or more of Silicon Valley CEOs are Asians, and that U.S engineering schools are full of students from South Asia. Bannon has made it clear that he believes that the number of legal immigrants in the U.S. is undermining “civic society,” despite what might be their positive effect on the economy. This suggests that Bannon believes the presence of immigrants in the U.S., regardless of their legal status and their contribution to the economy, will degrade the quality of civic culture. This belief is the very essence of white nationalism and can only be remedied by removing the offenders.
But, Bannon has gone further than decrying the presence of immigrants contributing to the U.S. economy. He uses an allegory of the invasion and destruction of white Western societies by nonwhites to explain immigration to the U.S. In this allegory, described in the openly racist book, Camp of the Saints, nonwhite immigrants invade Christian countries and subject the white inhabitants to various forms of degrading behavior and sexual deviancy. The success of these nonwhite invaders is aided by the whites’ loss of belief in their racial and cultural superiority. The conclusion is the rise of a group of white defenders who kill a million starving nonwhite refugees to preserve white Christian culture. Genocide in defense of white Christian culture may, in this allegory, be necessary.
Sessions shares this anti-immigrant and white supremacist ideology with Steve Bannon. As Emily Bazelon points out, they see the U.S.’s increasing nonwhite demographic profile as its primary threat. Sessions, for example, authored a 25 page memo, using suspect data, to argue that both undocumented and documented immigration had reduced opportunities for employment and upward social mobility. Bannon and Sessions spent months working together, first, on how to oppose the Senate’s 2013 comprehensive immigration bill, and then, on how to enact their shared agenda on how to maintain a European and Christian identity in the U.S.
Sessions and Bannon intend for the Department of Justice (DoJ) to be the instrument by which white nationalism becomes the undergirding creed for U.S. domestic policy. There are at least three areas in which Sessions is planning to use DoJ to implement white nationalism: crime and policing; voting rights; and Russian interference in U.S. elections. One keystone of white nationalism, disputed by statistical facts, is that crime results from the presence of nonwhites. As Attorney General, Sessions will now be able to influence the portrait of nonwhite crime. He has already supported the white nationalist meme about the rising crime rate by deciding to end DoJ investigations of civil rights abuses by police departments.
Since the sixties the voting rights of nonwhites has been one of the most potent weapons available to fight white supremacy and, with the exception of the Reagan years, the DoJ has helped to secure those rights. Sessions has made it clear that DoJ will not help to expand voting rights, but instead intends to do as much as possible to roll back voting rights, in agreement with the Republican Party’s stated policy position. So far in a Texas voting case Sessions has changed from supporting the expansion of voting rights to limiting rights. In effect, the DoJ under Sessions has begun to support white nationalism.
With the fall of the Soviet Union white nationalists have engaged in a romance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Although some members of the Main Stream Media attribute this infatuation to Putin’s strong man image, white nationalists themselves cite their identification with Russia’s white population on the one hand and presumed assault by Muslim hordes on the other. In part for this reason, white nationalists accept, if not condone, Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Of course, white nationalists are also sanguine about the interference because it resulted in the election of Donald Trump. As the Attorney General, Sessions should oversee the DoJ’s investigation of this interference, but he has had to recuse himself because his untruthful testimony on behalf of Trump during his confirmation hearing made it clear he could not even pretend impartiality.
Nonetheless, it is not clear that he will either fully abide by his recusal in the Russian investigation or recuse himself from all other related investigations. To the extent that he is able to minimize findings of Russian culpability in the 2016 election, he will bolster white nationalism.
In spite of how white supremacist ideology has shifted from controlling the behavior of nonwhite people separating them from whites, Sessions was spared from having to justify his anti-immigration position. During his confirmation hearing for Attorney General of the U.S., Sessions’ supporters argued that his racist statements and behaviors that sunk his nomination for a federal judgeship should be excused because these incidents had occurred 30 years ago. Perversely, Sessions’s opponents neglected to point out that his acknowledged and continuing anti-immigrant position was consistent with white supremacists’ renewed anti-immigration stance. It is almost as though opponents of Sessions and much of the Main Stream Media were unaware of developments in white supremacist ideology.
It would be bad enough if Bannon’s role in the Trump Administration were limited to that of a White House senior advisor. But, given Sessions’s role as Attorney General, this Administration is truly frightening. The methods that Sessions (and Bannon) envision for removing nonwhites from the U.S. may seem mild compared to the genocide and other extreme measures used in other countries, but what they envision certainly qualifies as ethnic cleansing.