Making Whiteness Great Again: Retooling White Supremacy in the Era of Global Capital

• In Event: 3523 - Issues in Race/Ethnicity, Immigration, and Social Structure

Abstract

Donald Trump’s (in)famous presidential campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again.” However, I argue that his agenda may be better understood as an attempt to make “whiteness great again” and that it should be understood within the context of the shifting meaning and function of race in the latest stage of the global capital era. This paper analyzes the election of Donald Trump and the broader increase of white identity activism as responses emerging out of what gender scholar, Michael Kimmel, labeled “aggrieved entitlement”. It does this analyzing the historical conditions that led white workers in the United States to adopt certain expectations with regards to their socioeconomic status and the way these expectations have been affected by the current era of global capital leading to a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling class and the U.S nation state. The paper argues that the ruling class has relied on the promotion of aggrieved entitlement as a key weapon within its arsenal to seek to restore its diminishing legitimacy.

Author

• Salvador Rangel, University of California-Santa Barbara