The White Supremacist Coup that Trump Uses as a Template

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign platform consists of only one theme: American cities are being torn apart by black mobs and antifa terrorists, and only he—the law and order president—can bring order back to the nation.

The idea that Trump, who has presided over the most corrupt White House administration in history, is campaigning as a “law and order” president would be laughable except for one thing: by spewing his hateful and racist rhetoric for more than three years, he has set the stage for a violent right-wing, white nationalist takeover of the country.

It happened here once before on a smaller scale. It happened in 1898 in Wilmington, NC.

As it neared the turn of the 20^th century, that North Carolina city was hailed as a prime example of the New South. The state’s largest city, its population was mostly black and prosperous. There were African American doctors, educators, and entrepreneurs, and it was run by black elected officials. In fact, North Carolina in general was more progressive than other southern states, having sent four black Republicans to Congress between 1875 and 1899.

This success was the result of a political coalition of Republicans—including black Republicans—and the Populist Party, which was comprised white farmers hit hard by a bad economy.

The Racist Democrats

That didn’t well with the conservative and racist Democratic Party.

Yes, back then the Democratic Party was largely the party of the South and that meant the party of racist white men. Most black voters cast their ballots for the Republican Party. We wouldn’t see the ideological line up we see today until the mid-20^th century, when progressives began taking over the Democratic Party and “Dixie Democrats” the Republican Party.

Trump, a Republican who filled his campaign staff and White House staff with self-avowed white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, would feel quite at home with the Democrat Party of 1898. The North Carolina Democratic state party handbook for that year stated, “This is a white man’s country and white men must control and govern it.”

State GOP leaders Furnifold Simmons, a future U.S. Senator, Charles Aycock, a future North Carolina governor, and Alfred Moore Wadell developed a plan to break up the Republican-Populist alliance: stoke white anger and resentment against blacks.

Their plan was supported by a FoxNews-like North Carolina newspaper which published racist political cartoons warning of “Negro domination” and the need to protect “white womanhood” from black men.

Red Shirts and other white supremacists pose
 following a violent coup that overthrew an interracial
 city government in Wilmington, NC.

The Democrats also had a private militia called the “Red Shirts.” Much like Trump’s support from white supremacist militias today, the Red Shirts used threats and violence to intimidate black voters. Armed Red Shirts attended Republican rallies to frighten away attendees, and patrolled polling places to keep black voters at bay—much as Trump is currently recruiting “an army” to guard polls today.

Shortly before the election, Alfred Moore Waddell addressed a Democratic rally announcing that “negro office-holding ought at once and forever be brought to an end. Even if we have to choke the current of the Cape Fear River with carcasses.”

The Democrats overwhelmingly won the election, taking over every city office that was open. But the coup didn’t stop there.

Following their election “victory,” the Democrats then forced any remaining coalition office holders out, with a show of force by marching 2,000 armed Red Shirts through the streets. Then they set to destroying the black economy. Any protests were met with violence, living up to Waddell’s promise to block “Cape Fear River with carcasses.” No one knows exactly how many black Americans were killed. Estimates vary from 40 to 60, but the death toll was probably higher.

On September 10, in a threat that sounded reminiscent of Waddell’s promise, Trump declared that if he wins, he will invoke the Insurrection Act to “put down” any protests with military force.

Same Rhetoric

The violence in 1898, of course, was blamed on black “instigators” just as Trump blames the riots raging about the country today on black activists and the largely mythical “antifa,” despite FBI reports that much of the violence is the work of white supremacist militias.

Following the violence, the Democratic victors announced a “White Declaration of Independence” declaring, “We will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.” Jim Crow laws, including literacy tests and poll taxes, were enacted to prevent blacks from voting. Wilmington, once a shining example of black opportunity, was now the domain of white nationalists.

And today, the nation has a president with a long record of open hostility toward black Americans who preaches hate-filled rhetoric about people of color and finds succor and support from the KKK and other white nationalist groups. He has spent more than three years driving a schism between the races, encouraging enmity between fellow Americans, lighting U.S. cities ablaze, and setting the stage for what he and his racist allies hope to be a white supremacist victory in November.