The novelist William Faulkner said: “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” The past 72 hours of burning US cities triggered parallels with 1968 — a year of urban white flight that ended with the election of Richard Nixon. He won on a law-and-order platform that appealed implicitly to white anxiety. Donald Trump does not deal in implicit language. In response to protests in Minneapolis after the police suffocation last week of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, Mr Trump tweeted: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”. The line was used by George Wallace, the segregationist third-party candidate in 1968. Republicans launched the “southern strategy” to win over resentful white Democrats after the civil rights revolution. Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign was the apotheosis of that approach.
小說家威廉?福克納(William Faulkner)曾說：“過去從未消亡。它甚至從未過去。”前幾天美國多地發生的打砸搶燒讓人想起了1968年發生的類似事件——那一年，住在市區的白人紛紛逃亡，最終以理查德?尼克松(Richard Nixon)當選總統而結束。尼克松依靠“法律與秩序”的政綱勝選，這一政綱隱晦地迎合了白人的焦慮情緒。但唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的用語就不怎么含蓄了。上周，46歲的黑人喬治?弗洛伊德(George Floyd)被警察壓迫窒息而亡，明尼阿波利斯市爆發抗議活動。對此，特朗普在Twitter發帖表示：“當搶劫開始時，射擊就會開始。”這句話曾被主張種族隔離的1968年大選第三黨候選人喬治?華萊士(George Wallace)用過。民權革命后，共和黨發起“南方戰略”，拉攏民主黨中憤憤不平的白人。特朗普2016年的競選活動就把這種方法運用得爐火純青。