White supremacy, the Trump moment, and the complicity of the political class: Anti-racist interrogations

The expression of White supremacy in the U.S. capitol is not an exception. It exists in continuity with the everyday work of the machinery of White supremacy.

The White supremacist terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol is reflective of a larger infrastructure of White supremacy. It is in many ways both a mirror and a culmination of the ongoing work of powerful political and economic interests invested in keeping White supremacy alive and in perpetuating it. 

This infrastructure of White supremacy has been held up by the political class, enabled by it, and reproduced by it. 

It has been funded by the capitalist class, finding support in powerful economic forces. 

White supremacist messages have been and continue to be circulated in the mainstream media. Digital infrastructures of White supremacy are funded by powerful economic interests. 

In other words, the political class is complicit in the perpetuation of White supremacy, funded by powerful economic forces. 

It is therefore important for anti-racist interventions to begin by critically interrogating the political economy of White supremacy. 

Following critical questions offer vital starting points to developing anti-racist interventions: Who is funding White supremacy? Who is aligning with White supremacist arguments? Which politician is making White supremacist claims? What are the connections between these White supremacist claims and Trumpian White supremacy? Which politician is voicing the interests of White supremacists? Which businesses are funding the campaigns of these politicians?

This complicity of the political class in protecting and perpetuating White supremacy is well evident in the attacks on both academics and activists that critically interrogate and expose the infrastructures of White supremacy. Consider for instance the sustained and ongoing attacks of politicians on critical race theory (CRT), a conceptual framework that critically interrogates the power dynamics that constitute the production and perpetuation of White supremacy in organisations, social formations, and communities. 

The attack on CRT organised by the Trump-led White House is/was an expression of the White supremacist forces at work seeking to silence critical interrogations of White supremacy. The silencing of critical articulations that challenge White supremacy is vital to the project of White supremacy. Given legitimacy by Trump, the attack on CRT found legitimacy among White supremacist politicians globally including here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Politicians often use the language of civility to carry out this attack on critics of White supremacy. Consider for instance the many instances where politicians have exerted their powers to contact university managers, demanding that X or Y faculty member be fired. This ongoing attacks on academics by White supremacist politicians have been seeded by White supremacist groups and circulated on White supremacist media. That these politicians in using the force of political power from opaque sites of influence serve the agendas of White supremacy needs to be foregrounded in the conversation. Activists, academics, and the media have vital roles to play in making these linkages visible. Freedom of information requests should be used to track the number of times a politician has contacted a University to make demands that reflect the interests of White supremacist groups. Activists and academics must push Universities to document, including maintaining paper trails of conversations, especially because these influences might be exerted with the purpose of making the influence invisible.

Simultaneously, the political structure and its corresponding security forces draw on the language of freedom of speech to voice White supremacist claims. Police, security structures, academia, and media leave White supremacist unchallenged, with explicit references to freedom of speech. 

Any attempt at universities for instance to protect minority communities against the harm caused by White supremacy is targeted as repression of academic freedom. White supremacists align behind organisations that proclaim to be the advocates for free speech to call for protections of White supremacist speech. These organisations as White supremacist organisations work specifically to protect White supremacy, framing Universities as Left wing bastions. 

The language of taxpayer funding is deployed to build a moral panic, the purpose of which is to precisely safeguard White supremacy. This paradox forms the infrastructure of White supremacy globally. 

The memes, photoshopped images, and strategies of White supremacy travel across spaces. Consider for instance the uptake of the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) slogan here in Aotearoa. 

It is important that we see these White supremacist flows and linkages beyond the U.S. to studying their effects globally. The work of anti-racist interrogations has to begin by questioning the complicity of our political class in perpetuating this infrastructure of hate.