The Great English-Speaking Flame-Out

Donald Trump

Early in his book Stamped From the Beginning, historian Ibram Kendi notes that early European colonists in America began looking around for cheap labor to populate the plantations. And that job was always taken by people who looked different. When Native Americans proved too vulnerable to European diseases, colonists switched to African slaves. This means, Kendi writes, that racism didn’t create economic inequality; economic inequality created racism.

I believe this. I’ve seen it play out, both in history and in our time. Five centuries ago, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote the first known justification of African slavery, because he couldn’t doubt the necessity of the plantation system. Today, the justifications used for family separation, gassing refugees, and more, frequently turn on claims that “they’re taking our jobs.” We need racism to make certain kinds of poverty acceptable in Earth’s richest country.

Except… what motivators are driving racism right now? I’m going to do something I generally avoid, and weigh into non-American politics. Because, just as America continues its longest-ever government shutdown over funding “The Wall,” Britain goes into the home stretch of Brexit with no plan. Parliament just voted down it’s own Prime Minister’s own plan by an over two-to-one margin, almost unheard-of in British parliamentary procedure.

The political leaders in two of the English-speaking world’s leading democracies age are getting their clocks cleaned in unprecedented fashion. Both “The Wall” and Brexit were foisted on their respective countries’ voters through explicitly racist language, claims that have been repeatedly debunked. Repeating the counterclaims would waste space. People who read my blog already realize my views, and are probably ready for me to make my real point.

Theresa May

And that point is: what economic interests are served by this current manifestation of racism? Mass migration justifies both The Wall and Brexit, yet mass migration provides the one thing both countries’ economic systems truly need, cheap labor. Whether Mexicans in America, or Poles in Britain, migrants are notoriously willing to do jobs native-born workers avoid, at wages natives would find insulting. Somebody needs to pick your strawberries.

At work every day, I witness the need for readily available Hispanic labor. As I’ve written before, construction is undoubtedly the most segregated workplace I’ve ever seen. Without a constant supply of Hispanic workers willing to string cable, lay brick, and pour concrete at absurdly low wages, the cost of new buildings in America would skyrocket. White Americans would never accept the wages we offer Mexican workers, which says everything.

Yet we’ve subverted the racist ideal. I know that sounds beneficial, but it puzzles me, because we haven’t done away with the demand for cheap, plantation-style labor. But White people have somehow started embracing, at least nominally, the labor conditions they formerly inveighed against. This appears to be happening internationally, as workers long for the “good ol’ days” of assembly-line manufacturing and resource extraction.

Half the early bluegrass music canon consists of songs about how awful coal-mining is, a thread that continues through current songs like Darrell Scott’s “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” Yet a huge fraction of Donald Trump’s voting coalition got behind him because he promised to keep coal mines open, coal companies solvent, and coal as America’s leading solid energy source. He promised to keep the blighted hellscape pumping. (How’s that working?)



Early American history isn’t one of self-reliance, despite what flag-waving patriots claim. The first English settlers at Jamestown, Virginia, were poor people England wanted to bury, according to historian Nancy Isenberg, and the first White settlers on land seized from Indians were generally chased off themselves when bureaucrats got involved. The one thing keeping poor Whites unified with rich Whites was the reassurance that at least they weren’t slaves.

Except, apparently, now they are. Poor White voters in America, and probably Britain too, are rushing to kick migrants off the land and rush into their poorly paid, no-hope jobs. Even as the policies that make such changes possible are historically unpopular, they nevertheless cling to such decisions. And the racist language I hear at work has become more heated, not less, as the Wall battle drags on interminably.

My one reassurance is that both governments are largely unsupported by their peoples. Donald Trump came second in 2016, and is unlikely to be reelected, while Theresa May lost her majority in 2017, and if she loses an expected no-confidence vote imminently, the Conservative coalition will shatter. Then maybe, just maybe, the race-baiters will have to leave office, and we can start rebuilding. Maybe.