{"id":38966,"date":"2025-01-22T12:53:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T20:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38966"},"modified":"2025-01-22T12:53:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T20:53:30","slug":"manifest-destiny-thats-really-really-alarming-even-by-trump-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/22\/manifest-destiny-thats-really-really-alarming-even-by-trump-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Manifest destiny?\u2019 That\u2019s really, really alarming, even by Trump standards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About the most racist thing a president has said in public in a long time.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By TIM REDMOND<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JANUARY 20, 2025 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know what scared me the most this morning: The declaration by the President of the United States that trans people are not people, or the Nazi salute by Elon Musk, or the suggestion that the US would seize the Panama Canal, or the promise of mass deportations and an end to birthright citizenship (which is in the Constitution, but maybe not safe under this Supreme Court).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the language that startled me\u2014maybe because I didn\u2019t expect it, even from Donald Trump\u2014was \u201cmanifest destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
William McKinley was a racist imperialist, someone Trump admires<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the term that pretty much defined the displacement and death of tens of thousands of native Americans. It defined settler colonialism and US imperialism. It was used to justify slavery. It\u2019s about the most openly racist thing I\u2019ve heard a president say (publicly) in my lifetime, and I was around for Ronald Reagan\u2019s first presidential campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news media coverage of the term was relatively subdued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, Trump was talking about sending astronauts to Mars\u2014something highly unlikely to happen in the next decade or more. He likely won\u2019t be around to see it. (I probably won\u2019t either, and I\u2019m 11 years younger than he is. And I don\u2019t eat a lot of cheeseburgers<\/a>, and when I play golf I walk.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elon Musk, of course, smirked at the line, because his company will likely get the continuing multibillion contracts with NASA. (The good news about Mars is that it will be even harder to get back than to get there, so maybe Musk will go start a new colony somewhere that isn\u2019t on Earth.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not the point. The term suggests a return to a very ugly time in US history. Trump underlined it by talking about restoring the name Mount McKinley to a peak in Alaska that\u2019s been known as Denali since 2015. He talked about how wonderful President William McKinley was, celebrating the man who was by many accounts the father of US imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know why this was a media footnote to the event; maybe we are all so used to Trump saying horrifying things that nobody pays attention any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we have to. Because it\u2019s not going away; it\u2019s getting worse.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the most racist thing a president has said in public in a long time. By TIM REDMOND JANUARY 20, 2025 (48hills.org) I don\u2019t know what scared me the most this morning: The declaration by the President of the United States that trans people are not people, or the Nazi… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38967,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38966\/revisions\/38967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}