About being pawns in Donald’s game
If you are familiar with the Bob Dylan song Only a Pawn in Their Game, you may well know who Medgar Evers was. If not, I’ll briefly enlighten you on the man’s life and, more importantly, the nature of his death.
Evers was a black Civil Rights activist in America’s Deep South during the 50s and 60s. In 1963 he was killed by a bullet from an Enfield rifle fired by a white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan. The assassination took place in the driveway of Evers’ home in Mississippi. As a Second World War veteran who had served at the Battle of Normandy, he was buried at Arlington Cemetery with full military honours.
It was one of the most high-profile and notorious killings of the period. His funeral was attended by thousands and his assassination has spawned dozens of songs, films and books.
Last week, his 93-year old brother Charles Evers, who in 1969 became the first black mayor of a Mississippi town, made a public statement endorsing Donald Trump as the next President of the United States.
He said he admired Trump because of his business acumen and he was sure he would bring new jobs to Mississippi. Evers added, “I haven’t seen any proof of him being a racist. All of us have some racism in us. Even me.”
Just so we’re straight on this. Donald Trump, who has attracted the public support of the Ku Klux Klan in his bid for the White House, and who has had black students ejected from his rallies, has now received the backing of the brother of one of the most symbolic figures of the Civil Rights Movement.
If it wasn’t such a bizarre story, the media would have been accused of making it up. But it simply beggars belief. Charles Evers is one of those people you would most expect to say, “Donald Trump must never be President.”
Trump is so far ahead in the Republican race that it’s now unlikely he will be caught. Admittedly he has been up against “establishment” opponents who have ranged from totally forgetful to absolutely useless. His two main challengers, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, resemble a couple of yapping puppies trying to take on a Rottweiler.
Unless he crashes, or the party ditches him, he is set to go head-to-head with – most likely – Hillary Clinton in a race for the White House. Clinton carries around a lot of baggage and scandal. None of it has been proved but that won’t bother Trump; it is the stuff he thrives on and he could well make mincemeat of her.
Trump has insulted everyone who has crossed his path, and many that haven’t, so why has he been such a political phenomenon? When he entered the fray last year most people, me included, thought he would be a flash in the pan and gone by Christmas.
The most popular theory is that he has become a rallying point for Republican voters, now highly disillusioned with their party performance since the turn of the century. First they had George W Bush, the scion of the Bush dynasty, thrust on them. After eight divisive years in power, Republicans were asked to support the pairing of John McCain and Sarah Palin then, in 2012, the instantly forgettable Mitt Romney.
They were hammered in both elections. But worse than that, in the eyes of a certain section of right wing voters – perhaps more than we realise – the White House has been occupied by a black man. On Internet message boards, often the refuge of the halfwit, Obama is constantly referred to as an ape or a monkey. Welcome to 21st century America.
The list of Republican candidates that started out last year was equally unimpressive – Cruz, Rubio, Jeb Bush and unknowns such as John Kasich and Ben Carson. Then, like a knight on a white charger, on to the battlefield marched Donald Trump. He is everything the establishment candidates are not. And the voters love him for it.
As the weeks and months have gone by he has demolished the opposition. It doesn’t matter that he is crude and disparaging, or that he few if any policy ideas, his support is increasing all the time. If this carries on, his march to the topo will be unstoppable.
If Charles Evers can publically support Trump than, quite honestly, anything can happen here.
Who knows, perhaps by this time next year Trump will have re-named Bob Dylan’s song after himself. Maybe everyone will be a pawn in Donald’s game? Frightening, isn’t it?