Is Trump's mention of Norway in his shithole comment also a dog whistle to white supremacists?

[wildeyed]

Is anyone talking about the role that Norse mythology (geographically centered in Scandinavia) plays in the modern white supremacist movement? When Trump singled out Norwegians as 'ideal' immigrants to the USA, that totally pinged my racist dog whistle meter. Anyone else wonder about that?

Calling Haiti, El Salvador and the continent of Africa a shithole and using that as an excuse to bar immigration is blatantly racist. No reasonable person will argue with that. But I think that the part where Trump encouraged Norwegians to immigrate to the USA is more racist than it appears at first glance. Media has been saying he used Norway as an example of 'good' immigrants because he met with the Norwegian PM recently and they are white so it was the first thing to enter his empty head when he made his 'unhelpful' comment about shitholes. But I believe he actually chose Norway as a coded dogwhistle to his supremacist base.

Pretty sure Trump and his ilk do not want a bunch of socialist Scandinavians who believe healthcare is a right not a privilege actually living here. So the reference to Norwegians is really a dog whistle reference to the Norse and Vikings who are much beloved by a virulently racist sub-set of his supporters. He is saying he wants more radical white supremacists here, not POC from those 'shithole' countries. (Please excuse me while I throw up into my mouth for a moment)

It's kinda like when he didn't mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day. At first glance it seems like a horrible oversight by political neophytes, but when you study it for a bit, turns out that it is was a very deliberately wink at the Holocaust deniers in his base.

Trump is SO racist. People want to give him a pass because he is new to politics, but his racist comments and oversights are VERY deliberate. It's always worse than you think with Tump.



Here are some old Norse symbols appropriated by white supremacist culture:





Scroll through the list of racist symbols for descriptions:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-videos/?utm_term=.dd4d4bc6ad33

The following link is a longish description of how the supremacists use the religion and the difference between racist and non-racist practitioners:

http://thevikingworld.pbworks.com/w/page/3917372/The%20Role%20of%20Odinism%20in%20Contemporary%20White%20Supremacist%20Movements

At least 1/4 of my genetic lineage is Norwegian, so the appropriation of that culture by racists makes me extra sad. The funny part about where the racist 'folkish' practitioners of Odinism 'require' Norse 'blood' to be a member of their sad little fantasy religion is that many of my cousins also have 1/4 Norse 'blood', but are definitely not 'white' by any modern cultural standards. My understanding, Norse and Anglo-Saxon are not the same, so it is likely that my fam has more legit claim to Norse mythology than most of them. But that is an inconvenient detail, that you can be a descendant of Vikings and also not white. And since the Vikings were mad travelers, I doubt they were picky about 'purity'.

[guillaumeb]

1. Just because Norway is an overwhelmingly white country,

and simply because Trump just happens to mention non-white countries as the problem, is no reason to assume that Trump, the son of a racist, is a racist himself.

All coincidence.

Recommended.

[yardwork]

9. Lol! It's all just a coincidence. Ok? (Makes white supremacist ok sign.)

This came out in the open with Sarah Palin's rallies. It's the first I'd seen openly racist imagery in public since the early 1970s.

[guillaumeb]

11. Reagan was a polite racist who used coded language.

Trump is the KKK member without the hood.

[brush]

2. Seems logical but you're giving trump too much credit. At this point his mind is incapable of...

that kind of multi-level messaging. IMO it was as reported, he had just met with a rep. from Norway so Norway was still in his somewhat addled brain.

[wildeyed]

4. Or maybe Stephen Miller told him to do it?

The last overtly supremacist advisor since Bannon got kicked off the island, right? Seems like the kind of thing that would come out of Miller's pea-brain.... And Trump is very stupid about most things, but according to everything I read, he has laser-like focus when it comes to media attention. And he NEEDS attention or else he withers. Might be that whoever is in charge of monitoring his racist troll demographic told him he needed to shore up that support and winking at their Norse beliefs would be a way to do that. Germany is off the table because everyone knows about the Nazi thing and Merkel is a powerful leader. But Norway and the Norse? They are so minor, only a supremacist or someone who was really paying attention would notice the connotation. I only noticed because I am a huge political nerd with special interest in anti-racism AND I have Norwegian relatives and ancestors who immigrated to the US in the not so distant past, so my ears perked up when I read the racists were appropriating that culture.

He did the same thing when he failed to mention Jews in his Holocaust comments. His daughter and son-in-law are Jewish, but he winked at the Holocaust deniers anyway. Problem with that is too many people understood what he did that time.

[brush]

5. Oh, a definite possibility. Miller is the one who stacked the DACA meeting with anti-immigration...

hardliners. He's an evil, little twit.

[wildeyed]

6. There is something seriously wrong with Stephen Miller, that's for sure.

Has anyone actually seen him is sunlight? Checked to see if he has a reflection in mirrors? I would def wear garlic around my neck if I had to work with him regularly.....

[brush]

8. Heeheehee! I like that "garlic" line.

[cheyanne]

3. Definitely.

Dictators don't learn to be totalitarian; it demands an almost innate ability to search out enemies anywhere. He needs enemies to keep the populace fearful. The neo-nazis were told once again from Trump that immigrants are fair game for discrimination and violence. This comment alerts the base to the fact that whatever he says on MLK day, he still has their back.

[Gothmog]

7. Trump is playing to his base of racist idiots

[moondust]

10. Maybe, but there may be unintended consequences.

As a result of tRump's reference to Norway some GOP voters may be finding out that "regular people" in some of those "evil socialist" places like Norway are better off than them. The GOP has always relied heavily on their base's ignorance of life in other countries, but now with the Internet it's much harder to keep the base in the dark.