This class will focus on the racial dimension of Donald Trump’s appeal to the white working class, which cuts across class and gender lines, highlighting issues of economic insecurity. While the Trump phenomenon has been seen as unique, it is in fact the case that his appeal to white supremacy has been a consistent feature of American Presidential politics for the last 60 years. Trump has made explicit what has been talked about in coded ways. In this class we will explore and discuss the racial aspect of Trump’s message, which has received scant attention in the public discourse.

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Trainer: Dr. Sut Jhally, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication at UMASS-Amherst and the founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. His work revolves around the ways in which media and culture impact our understanding of issues connected to race, gender, politics, international relations and hyper-commercialism. He is the author and editor of a number of books and has been involved in the production of over 70 films and videos.

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A discussion with Mark Weisbrot

With elections scheduled in Bolivia for Oct. 18, we will look at how the Organization of American States (OAS) and U.S. government helped the Bolivian right to overturn the results of last year's election and install a right wing government. Independent observers from various countries – outside of the OAS – will have to do their best in October to publicize any voter suppression or other illegal actions by which the unelected, de facto government could steal the election.

What is the U.S. doing / has done to roll back the unprecedented popular gains of Latin America in the first decade of the 21st century, through regime change and other means? We will look at Ecuador– an outrageous case that the media hasn’t even touched — Brazil, the sanctions in Venezuela, and other interventions. What difference might the U.S. elections make to Latin America?

We’ll also look at how the U.S. could easily stop blocking the IMF from issuing Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) enabling countries of the Global South to pay for COVID-19 relief.

Despite its many military interventions, the U.S. arguably does even more damage and kills more people through non-military means like the Bolivian coup. It’s important for the peace movement to make this clear, because there is a strong current now among liberals which argues that we need to switch to “diplomacy” and non-military intervention, and “soft power”, while not changing regime change and interventionist goals. For just one example, the US enforcement of drug patents, e.g. through the rules of the WTO, has possibly killed as many people as their wars, since the WTO was formed in 1995, as Weisbrot explains.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is author of the book Failed: What the “Experts” Got Wrong About the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2015).

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