“Make America safe” (2015- ) is one of Donald Trump’s racist dog whistles, both when he ran for US president and now that he is president. Sometimes he puts it together with his yet more famous racist dog whistle, “Make America Great Again” to get “Make America Safe & Great Again.”
It seems like “Make America safe” is innocent enough. Who, after all, would not want to make America safe? All presidents should look out for the safety of their countries, right?
But, in fact, he is playing on people’s fear to gain and keep power. Sometimes he has crime by Blacks and Latinos in mind, but mainly he means making it safe from Muslims and Mexicans who enter the US.
Such fears are based on prejudice not fact. That can be shown by Trump’s own policies and words. Just this past month, October 2017, there were three examples of that:
1. Sayfullo Saipov, a Muslim American, purposely drove a truck down a bicycle lane in New York, injuring 12 and killing 8. ISIS claimed credit. Trump tweeted:
“We need to make AMERICA SAFE!”
Nothing wrong with that, except:
2. Stephen Paddock, a White American, opened fire in Las Vegas, injuring 546 and killing 58. ISIS claimed credit. Trump tweeted nothing about making America safe. A Muslim man killing 8 is somehow more dangerous than a White man killing 58?
3. Rosa Maria Hernandez, a Mexican American, was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. Not because she had just crossed the Mexican border – she has been in the country since she was a baby – but because Texas has checkpoints 60 miles deep inside the US. She was in fact an undocumented immigrant, having entered the country without the proper papers. But she was also a ten-year-old girl with cerebral palsy in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The Border Patrol wanted one of their agents to ride in the back of the ambulance with her with his gun. They were talked out of that, but they did wait outside her hospital room – for days. When she left the hospital, her doctor said she should be at home with her mother to recover from her gall bladder operation. Instead the Border Patrol took her to their detention centre. This is the kind of stuff they do.
Make America safe!
Trump’s policies on Muslims and Mexicans – ahem, “terrorists” and “illegal immigrants” – do next to nothing to keep America safe:
- His original Muslim travel ban, for example, picked none of the countries where terrorists in the US in fact come from.
- His deportation raids pick up dangerous criminals only by accident. There is already a system in place to find dangerous criminals and keep them off the streets. It is called the police.
- His ending of DACA would not keep America safe either: none of the registered Dreamers have committed a serious crime. They would not have been able to register otherwise.
In other words, “Make America safe” has little to do with making America safe. It has to do with something else.
– Abagond, 2017.
Update (November 7th): The pixels on this post were barely dry when the worst shooting in Texas (so far) took place. Half the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs were gunned down Sunday morning. The gunman killed at least 26 people, injuring 20 others. He was White. Trump said nothing about making America safe.
See also:
- Donald Trump
- racist dog whistle
- prejudice
- propaganda terms
- policies
- Stephen Paddock
- “America Was Never Great”
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Reblogged this on Boycott.
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Where are all of those voices that did not want Mrs. Clinton?
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I feel some need to speak on this. It seems to not only pull at heartstrings to a large degree, but also seems to be symptomatic of the 1st world/3rd world dichotomy. Meaning that we (the US) picks certain regimes that can aid us materially, and the rest of the world is left to ‘figure it out.’
So, there are necessarily a LOT of civilians left to what would amount to a squalid, dispossessed existence, as those without power succumv to circumstance.
So America’s beacon, high aloft the statue of ‘liberty,’ burns bright, and points the way to a ‘better’ life.
So, taking the stated and, to my mind, denotationally bolstered argument, open the borders. Let everyone with a backpack (or not) and a dream pull on up in a boat, or what have you. Don’t ya think it would be total chaos?
I would remind the readers here if we hadn’t violated our purposeful non-intervrntion policy back before wwi, things would be a lot different.
And also, isn’t that just manifest destiny 2.0 from some perspective, the difference being the ability to leverage force on the behalf of the current occupants.
Also, let them in. And then what?
If they’re not going to wind up in a camp in idaho instead of jordan or turkey, how’s it gonna be better?
There may be some responsibility when we actually bombed a country to fix it up, but so many countries display greed, corruption, disdain, and neglect for their citizens to a larger degree than the us, need we not only be the planet’s policeman, but school nurse, lunch lady, and benefits provider too? Oh wait we are. But that’s not enough right? Expedience dictates not that we see their homelands in a reasonable shape, let’s just share our thing, broken and dismal as it it. #ijs, and i’m just getting warmed up, thus seems to be a symptom of one of the main root causes of poverty/misery today.
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My heart goes out to young Rosa Maria Hernandez the innocent victim in this sh*t show of this era of the orange monster that is 45 and his minions.
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There has been another mass shooting, this time, at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Early reports indicate almost 30 dead and 30 injured. From what I’m seeing so far the suspect is a 20-something white male but it’s still early and details are sketchy.
So far, Trump’s tweet on the issue has been a very measured expression of condolences. He definitely reacts very differently when white people go on a rampage vs those classified as non-white. There is no suggestion of a political response to this that would limit white people’s access to guns or that white people shouldn’t be in America.
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Of course, it’s not surprising but it’s very obvious and I wouldn’t call it a dog whistle at this point…more like a loudpseaker (or loud-twitter).
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America has never been great nor will it ever be safe.
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Devin Patrick Kelley 26 year old white church shooter of Sutherland Springs church shooter is he a terrorist or not?
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@ v8driver
“…need we not only be the planet’s policeman, but school nurse, lunch lady, and benefits provider too? Oh wait we are.”
You are surely aware of what happens to countries that attempt to stay out of the US/EU sphere of influence…when they say “no, we’re good, we prefer to go our own way”?
Our beloved country takes far more than it gives. To me, the view of the US as “the planet’s policeman, but school nurse, lunch lady, and benefits provider” is masterful propaganda aimed at the American people.
Everyone else on the globe knows better.
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@ Mary Burrell
“…white church shooter of Sutherland Springs church shooter is he a terrorist or not?”
According to the corporate media, Trump and Congress, he is just a “sick individual”, “a regular joe” or a “victim of child abuse”. Any excuse will do to explain away toxic White masculinity.
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Update: The pixels on this post were barely dry when the worst shooting in Texas (so far) took place. Half the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was gunned down Sunday morning. The gunman killed at least 26 people, injuring 20 others. He was White. Trump said nothing about making America safe.
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The signs were all there when the person was discharged from the service for violence against his family.
The failure is our negative support of people who have different degrees of mental problems. There should have been a program for this man to be enrolled in to help him adjust.
We spend billions of dollars on weapons to set in silo’s and rot; yet, we do not have a decent program to assist those individuals who have mental problems.
Expect more of the same until we start finding ways to identify and assist such individuals.
Revenge is not a very good thing. Putting this person in jail and providing him with either a Bad Conduct or Dishonorable Discharge only set him up to act out.
What was his future?
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Damn white folks shooting up churches again
You notice when shit like this goes down everyones on pins and needles about the shooter’s race ?
I read that Sutherland Springs, and the whole county of Wilson is 95% white.
Ya now…..one of them places that whites run to, to get away from supposedly violent lawless blacks (lol)
And this happens ?
So who can they blame now ?
Hang on – Did this guy say allahu Akbar? Ho hum
This dude was in the military but still didn’t verify his targets. He didn’t know if the in-laws were inside before he ran in and started firing. Not only was he crazy but he was dumb as fuck
What about his wife and kid ? Are they alive ? Where are they ? Or did he murk them before he went to the church ?
I swear white men lack a coping mechanism from years of dominating and having things go their way. They are like spoiled children who when they have their candy taken away from them, throw tantrums. They go from neutral to raving maniac in seconds.
Just another day in ‘Merica.
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“What was his future?” – Allen E. Shaw
Unfortunately, Devon Kelley lacked the necessary nurturing, like sucking on his mother’s breasts as an infant.
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unbelievable
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“Although military law does not classify crimes as felonies or misdemeanors, Kelley’s sentence was a functional felony conviction, said Geoffrey Corn, a former Army lawyer and professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston.”
any charge with a potential jail sentence of 1+ year is considered a felony on the street.
convicted felon, domestic abuse (federal database), escaped from a mental hospital? jesus h
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/06/the-air-force-says-it-failed-to-follow-procedures-allowing-texas-church-shooter-to-obtain-firearms/?utm_term=.d7611e55cd38
“service guarantees citizenship”
-robert heinlein
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/europe/26-teenage-migrants-dead-at-sea/index.html
and back on thread: i mean it must be worse, where is the line of responsibility if ‘the free world’ is so great and it’s worth dying for to get to europe even
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@blakksage Your response was most enlightening, I am sure you spent many hours thinking out what my comment was all about before you responded.
The point I am making is every year we are placing individuals in a position where they cannot earn a living an in many communities are banned.
As this occurs we are experiencing more and more violence in increasing volume of individuals. We then cry out “Why o Why” when we have created the mess in the first place.
Every living human being must be provided a means to survive no matter how reprehensible they may be. The person in this matter should have been under the mandatory care of a Doctor and he probably was living of the welfare of his family.
Revenge is not the answer to any question.
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@ Abagond one of the most fascinating question ask is how did this person get a gun and was it legal.
With as many guns that have been stolen over the years, sold by the gun clubs and auctions, etc I believe that any person who wishes to do harm can purchase such a weapon. The USAF has admitted they did not report the felony to the FBI, yet the sentence was carried out in a US military prison where such information could have been obtained from the prison.
The drug dealers all have guns which probably did not get purchase legally. Other mobsters have illegal guns. Guns probably come across the border in the same volume as people.
The president is correct, this was a problem that should have been addressed by the Mental Health Community; however, we would rather spend trillions of dollars on weapons than to support the Mental Health Community. The violence that this man did against his step child is almost unbelievable.
“Lock um up ” makes many people happy; yet, they do not understand they are turned loose on the society after some period of time and then they become a loose cannon ball.
Please cover this subject with your skill.
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The guns per se are not the problem. It the person(s) wielding them. So does it not make sense to control the sales, issuance of guns? For those that say any weapon can be used such as a knife, machete, hammer, baseball bat etc., let me ask you this; Can one person slaughter dozens of people in one go with the above mentioned implements?
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“@blakksage Your response was most enlightening, I am sure you spent many hours thinking out what my comment was all about before you responded.” – The Magnificent Allen Shaw
Reply: Allow me to correct you once again. It perhaps would takes a pin-head hours to conjure up something as simple as my posted up thread. But me, it took approximately a couple of minutes.
“Every living human being must be provided a means to survive no matter how reprehensible they may be. The person in this matter should have been under the mandatory care of a Doctor and he probably was living of the welfare of his family.” – The Magnificent Allen Shaw
Reply: I wholeheartedly encourage you to write a demand letter of release to all U.S. territorial and State Governors in support of all the Black men maliciously locked up behind some cooked up crime(s) they supposedly committed, when in all likelihood, they probability didn’t. So, don’t give me this sop of a story about some psychotic white man that shot up a church full of white people.
By the way, did you post something similar when Dylan Roof shot up a church full of Black people in Charleston, SC (my hometown)?
And, if you’re looking for someone or some people to blame, place the blame on the Air Force’s Psychologists. I am quite certain that they had an inkling of what Kelly was capable of doing when considering his mental history.
“Revenge is not the answer to any question.” – The Magnificent Allen Shaw
Reply: For goodness’ sake, how in the hell could sucking on your momma’s breasts be considered revenge? I wrote nothing that pertained to revenge. Obviously you missed the point of my post.
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@blakksage Yup, you are too subtle for me. No I did not write anything about any other of your comments.
There is no reason for me to write about a subject that has been commented about such a vast amount of times.
You want to talk about me not the fact that you made a foolish remark. The man in question was mentally ill and it makes no difference if he was white or black, our system does not provide for such people.
We spend billions on weapons that are useless, yet we do not understand that we will be destroyed from within, because we do not provide medical assistance for the mentally ill.
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@blakksage I believe that once the Air Force shipped the person to the prison, which I understand was a Navy prison, they were done with the problem. The sentence had to be reviewed and the final dishonorable discharge was probably prepare at the Navy prison by Navy personnel. The Air Force does not have a prison.
It is so easy to attach blame when we do not understand.
We will see what happens; this may change the way procedures are carried out.
This persons action should have required him being under some kind of supervision. How many other individuals have been released under the same circumstances. (by the way it does not make any difference to me if they are black, white, yellow or red). You can spend your time being concerned about that!
157 dishonorable discharges in 2014. These individuals could be safe or dangerous depending upon how they are received in their communities.
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White men are cracking up mentally since they are on track to be a minority in a brown country by I think 2040 was it? Also soon to be extinct worldwide by 2100 I believe. So, just a matter of time and then all this violence will end and the world will be at peace. Just wait it out.
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