President’s targeting of Fed governor Lisa Cook highlights his efforts to remove diverse voices from government

President’s targeting of Fed governor Lisa Cook highlights his efforts to remove diverse voices from government

A day after Donald Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, the White House proudly released a photo. It showed Trump, his cabinet and other officials giving a thumbs-up. Of the 24 people in the Oval Office, only one was Black.

For those who have studied the US president’s long and troubling history of racism, the two events were more than mere coincidence. They were indicative of a man who has recently brought white nationalist perspectives from the margins back to the mainstream.

Trump has vehemently denied that he is a racist, pointing to a modest increase in support among African American voters in last year’s election, when his opponent was a Black woman. But critics suggest that his effort to oust Cook fits a pattern of purging diverse voices from the higher ranks of leadership.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    3 days ago

    The cons already had a lot of latent racism, but the election of Obama just drove so many cons (and probably not a few low-info) absolutely bonkers.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        I think a whole lot of cons had a lot of simmering resentment toward a lot of people prior to Obama. Then the impossible happened - and I didn’t believe it would happen myself - most of America voted for a person of color to be President. I honestly thought lots of people were saying they would, but then vote for third party, or vote R or whatever, once they were casting their vote in secrecy.

        But it happened. And it was clear a sizable portion of the country thought this was wrong, that a horrible injustice was done, that everyone was duped because Obama lied about/didn’t show his proper birth certificate. That he had a grudge against “the white race” because of his anti-colonialism and Communism, that he was going “fundamentally change America”, and steal their health care, etc.

        I think a whole lot of people could no longer hide their boiling anger rooted in racism and misogyny and so on, and so it came roaring back and most of them started saying a lot of things openly again (or pseudo-anonymously online), and not just about Black people.

        In addition: they lost on the gay marriage thing. Well, that only served to make them even more angry. And so they pivoted to the trans thing as a proxy war…

        • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
          2·
          2 days ago

          That he had a grudge against “the white race”

          There must have been significant naked fear amongst some misinformed white people.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            3 days ago

            Oh, of course. And they hope if they can roll everything back there, they’ll move back to Teh Gheyz, too. And they just might be able to re-claim that turf, too.

            It’s clear that Samuel Trollito is a very, very angry man about a whole lot of freedoms and seems poised to do whatever is needed to roll it back.

            I have no idea why someone like Thiel would back these people - I assume he plans on moving to New Zealand if things get bad enough. I also think Thiel might be legit crazy given his love for things like the book The Sovereign Individual.

            https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/09/05/justice-alitos-crusade-against-a-secular-america-isnt-over

            • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
              2·
              2 days ago

              I have no idea why someone like Thiel would back these people

              Simple. This style of fascism is designed to give very rich people respite from the law and literal castles from which they can watch the rest of the world, if they feel like it.

              The extreme right populist party in Germany is led by a Lesbian who lives with her immigration background POC wife in Switzerland. Let that sink in.

        • Dragomus@lemmy.world
          21·
          3 days ago

          imo you are forgetting one thing, the whole “positive discrimination” concept, as a precursor to “DEI”, was a BIG catalyst that started to make people feel they are being treated unfairly.
          Slowly but with solid force people who worked/studied hard, were skipped for positions or possibilities in favor of someone with lesser degrees, and often (not always) the ones suffering under it never fully saw it as a race/skin color issue, it was just unfair.

          People sucked up that disgruntlement for years, and along comes a bloated guy with a movement that makes clear those years will be rolled back. Some of them seem to even expect to now get that one job they missed out on 6 years ago handed to them, ignoring ofcourse how the scales now tipped to the other side where it will be “friends or buy-ins only”.