1,472 words

The news outlet Axios published an article on Monday entitled “Exclusive: Trump allies plot anti-racism protections — for white people” in which it was claimed that, should a second Donald Trump administration come to pass, Trump intends to amend civil rights law to give protections to white people: “If Donald Trump returns to the White House, close allies want to dramatically change the government’s interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of color.”

As the kids say, “big if true.”

I have little faith in anything Trump says and I have even less in what liberals tell me that Trump is thinking but not saying. The Axios article does not give much in the way of statements directly from Trump himself to indicate that he intends to institute white civil rights. The article rather focuses mostly on what “Trump allies” have been doing and then extrapolating from that to predict what a second Trump administration might do. It particularly focuses on former Trump advisor Stephen Miller and some of the pro-white lawsuits launched by his organization, America First Legal, which Miller describes as a Right-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Axios article has already been picked up by a slew of other news outlets, all of them liberal. Rolling Stone, Daily Beast, and MSNBC have been oy veying about it and claiming that Trump is going to roll back civil rights for minorities and replace them with all manner of pro-white legislation. A headline from The Guardian, “Extremist ex-adviser drives ‘anti-white racism’ plan for Trump win — report,” gives a feel for the general tone. What I have not seen yet is any right-of-center publications picking up on the story, yet I’m not sure I’m looking forward to when they do. I can already imagine the op-eds from Daily Wire and National Review about how “Trump giving civil rights to white people would make us no better than the woke Left.”

I want to believe, but part of me fears this Axios article was intended as fear porn for liberals and not as a white pill for the dissident Right. The Left seems to be legitimately spooked that a white backlash is coming. The Supreme Court ruled last year that Harvard’s race-based affirmative action program violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. This is a bad omen for the Left, as it indicates that the woke Death Star’s shields are down and that a strategically-placed lawsuit against its thermal exhaust port could set off a legal chain reaction that would blow up the whole grift. Axios also points to a CBS survey from last November which found that 58% of Trump voters believe that minorities are favored over whites.

No doubt Trump becoming a champion of white civil rights would be enormously popular among his base, but historically there is an inverse relationship between how popular something would be with Trump’s base and how likely Trump is to actually do it. I often wish Trump were the person liberals think he is.

Axios’ claim rests on the assumption that Stephen Miller will be part of Trump’s next administration and that he will have a significant influence on policy. So what has Stephen Miller been up to that has the Lefties so nervous?

Miller’s organization, America First Legal, filed some lawsuits in February claiming anti-white discrimination. One of these lawsuits is against CBS and Paramount in the case of a freelance writer for the TV show Seal Team who said he was unfairly denied a full-time writing position on it because he was white. From the America First Legal website:

Mr. Beneker is a white, heterosexual male script coordinator and freelance scriptwriter who has consistently written episodes for CBS’s “Seal Team” television series since 2017. He has been repeatedly denied a staff writer position with the show, while CBS hired and promoted individuals who lacked experience and screenwriting credits but were part of the favored hiring groups; that is, they were nonwhite, LGBTQ, or female.

He was previously praised for his work by the showrunner, who offered him the opportunity to write a freelance script, a pathway to the writer’s room. Mr. Beneker asked the showrunner to hire him as a staff writer for the show. He was denied his request and was told that the show already had too many staff writers. However, several months later, CBS hired an additional staff writer, a black male with little relevant experience. Beneker asked his supervisor why the new writer was staffed, and he was told it was because he was black.

By May 2022, CBS hired several staff writers without experience who met their DEI qualifications, specifically, women who were black or LGBTQ. The showrunner informed Mr. Beneker that he did not check the right boxes that the studio was looking for. However, Mr. Beneker has written or co-written four freelance episodes, one of which became the Season 3 Finale and one of which is currently in production for the final season. . . .

I’m no legal expert, but this looks like a good case. CBS was foolish enough to make public statements about using racial quotas in hiring (all writers’ rooms must be 50% Black, Indigenous, and People of Color [BIPOC]). On top of this, I think everyone knows in their hearts that a TV show about an elite military unit should be written by white men and is not going to be improved by the addition of black trans lesbians to the writers’ room.

The same month, America First Legal filed a civil right complaint against the National Football League (NFL) for “violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and engaging in race and sex discrimination.” The focal point of the complaint is the NFL’s “Rooney rule,” which requires the League to interview a minimum of two minorities for each vacant head coach or general manager position, and at least one minority and/or female for any other senior position.

America First Legal states:

Effectively, in the twenty years that the Rooney Rule has been in existence, all it has done — according to minority interviewees for head coaching positions and the former head of the NFL Players Association DeMaurice Smith — is result in member clubs engaging in sham interviews with minority candidates solely to check the Rooney Rule box. Given the limited timeframe to hire executives and coaches after the season, this results in fewer opportunities for similarly situated, well-qualified candidates who are not minorities.

Godspeed, Stephen Miller. I wish Mr. Miller luck, but is there much reason to believe that his kind of activism will find a home in a second Trump term? Axios does not give us much reason to think so. The best they can do is bring up the fact that Trump has at times described black prosecutors, such as New York Attorney General Latecia James, as being “racist.” The implication here is that Trump is playing the race card and suggesting that he is being persecuted for being white. This is probably true, but whether his newfound sense of white identity translates into policy when in power is anyone’s guess.

Axios claims that things will be different than they were in the first Trump term due to the fact that Team Trump has started ideologically vetting his staff. This was something Trump should have started doing in 2015. But the Heritage Foundation has put together something called “Project 2025,” a pre-transition blueprint that includes screening questions for people who apply for positions in the Trump White House. The questions include things such as “Name one person, past or present, who has most influenced the development of your political philosophy,” and “Name a book that has most significantly shaped your political philosophy, and please explain its influence on your thinking.”

According to Axios:

An alumnus of the Trump White House told us both documents are designed to test the sincerity of someone’s MAGA credentials and determine “when you got red-pilled,” or became a true believer. “They want to see that you’re listening to Tucker, and not pointing to the Reagan revolution or any George W. Bush stuff,” this person said.

Again, big if true, although at this point I am loath to predict what Trump is going to do. The smart money is on more of the same, but there are some stray white pills around. Trump has dusted off his old 2016 platform and is promising mass deportations of illegals, and even more surprisingly has become mildly critical of Israel lately. Talk is cheap, of course, but it is a sign that Trump is responsive to his base’s opinions. On the positive side, Jared Kushner has said he would not return to the White House if Trump wins again. If that’s indeed the case, I can’t see how a second term could possibly be worse.