Opinion | US Vs. Them: Trump Reshares India, China 'Hellholes' Rant

‘India, China are hell holes,’ ‘Indian and Chinese migrants have done more damage to this nation than all the mafia families put together, in my unhumble opinion. Gangsters with laptops. They’ve robbed us blind, treated us like second-class citizens, let the ‘turd world’ triumph, stepped on our flag, et cetera.’  American President Donald Trump reshared these  outrageous, racist remarks made by podcaster Michael Savage on Truth Social recently. Trump’s amplification of this anti-migrant rant should surprise no one. There is a well-established pattern in his own regressive and derogatory views on women, sexual and other minorities, and migrants. He uses his diatribe to divert public attention from his failures of American leadership on the home front and abroad. So, there is a method in the madness of Trump, who is responding to his millions of local supporters who share and celebrate his anti-migrant views. 

However, Trump’s views are not individual aberrations but rather a well-crafted message of racial capitalism in the US. Wage inequality, occupational segregation of ethnic minorities, limited career growth, and the concentration of Black men and women in low-paid jobs reveal deeper systemic discrimination within the racialised capitalist system that runs the USA. White families control nearly 85 per cent of American wealth, whereas Black and Hispanic families control around only six per cent of wealth in the US. This shows that the racial wealth divide, based on ownership and control over wealth, is much wider than the racial wage gap. American capitalism and its ruling elites, represented by Trump, have no policy alternative and no answer to this racist economic and political system, where political and economic power is controlled by white Americans who govern the country and dominate its economic system. It is easier to divide people on racial lines than addressing racial wealth and the wage gap in the US. So, the American elites are following the easier colonial path of divide and govern.

Within the racial asymmetry of American capitalism, Asian migrants are among the most hardworking, skilled and successful migrant communities in the US in terms of income, ownership of houses and cars, and access to health and education. These migrants are central to American capitalism because of their skills and contributions, but white supremacist politics is unable to grasp the rise of Asian migrants on the racialised political and economic ladders of American capitalism. This is the context in which Trump hurls racial rants against Indian and Chinese immigrants in the US.

What is most worrisome in the comments Trump shared is that “You have to be from India or China because almost all the internal mechanisms are set up to be run by Indians and Chinese.” These comments are within the context of California and the ownership demography of its technology industry, where the majority of technology companies are owned by Indians and Chinese.

Historically, such a statement follows in the footsteps of Nazi Germany, where the antisemitic conspiracy theory that all internal mechanisms of the German state, politics, and economy were run by Jews was factually incorrect, yet, it led to the Holocaust, which exterminated Jewish populations not only in Germany but across Europe. The false propaganda of the Nazis and fascists led to the mass murder of Jewish populations in different parts of Europe. Savage's statement that white ownership of technology companies, or the employment of white people in the tech industry in California is nil is not only factually incorrect but also historically similar to that of the European Nazis and fascists, which led to the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” and ended up in the mass murder of Jewish people in Europe. This is the most dangerous part of the statement, as it fuels racial hatred in the US. By aiding in fuelling such hatred, Trump is hiding the failures of racialised American capitalism, its systemic racial discrimination, and diverting people’s attention from a system that has failed to deliver the American dream of prosperity and peace to its citizens.

Therefore, it is neither merely about the showman President, nor about his views on Indians, Chinese people, and migrants. It is about the peace, solidarity, and stability of social, political, and economic life in the US, which is being eroded by none other than its own racialised system, represented by Trump and his illiberal governing elites. Therefore, it would be a grave mistake to blame him alone without identifying the processes and institutions that manufacture Trumpian worldviews to hide the failures of American capitalism and its imperialist wars, which have killed more than 12 million people, maimed millions, and left millions destitute across the world. American capitalism produces hunger, homelessness, deaths and destitution. Racialised American capitalism is the “hellhole” of the American people, whereas American imperialism is the “gateway to hell” for people across the continents.

Solidarity is the only strategy to mobilise the masses and defeat Trump and his worldview, in order to reform and revitalise progressive America on a path of secular prosperity and economic growth, political empowerment of American citizens, while contributing to world peace by defeating racialised capitalism and US-led imperialism.

(The author is a Senior Lecturer of Business Strategy at Coventry University, UK. Views expressed are personal.)