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Scapegoating by the Political Right: A Mask for Privilege

Wittner, Lawrence
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/13/scapegoating-by-the-political-right-a-mask-for-privilege/

Publisher:  Counterpunch
Date Written:  13/12/2016
Year Published:  2016  
Resource Type:  Article

A historical context for the role of scapegoating of minorities in the 2016 US election examining similar practices by privileged groups to maintain power in modern history.

Abstract: 

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Excerpts:

How should this marriage of right wing politics with racial, religious, and nativist passions be explained? Psychologists and other social theorists have argued that human beings have an unfortunate tendency to blame others for problems that these others did not cause, especially if they constitute a small minority and, therefore, are unable to defend themselves.

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Although racial, religious, and foreign minorities served as targets for political abuse throughout American history, African Americans were particularly useful along these lines. The Southern planter class drew on racism to maintain its political power during the slavery era. And, even in the aftermath of the Civil War, the planters and the new industrial magnates defeated interracial working class alliances in the South by appealing to racism among poor whites. By fanning the flames of racism and using the Democratic Party to cement their rule in Southern states, wealthy Southerners succeeded in turning back Reconstruction, Populism, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and union organizing drives.
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