It should be a crime, but it isn’t. It has been said enough times, that you believe it: “Americans are angry.” Mainstream poll after poll has revealed that Americans are feeling a high degree of anxiety. That anxiety is unquestionably facilitated by a weak economy, decreased wage earning potential and a loss of blue-collar jobs in the traditionally white hinterland.

What you don’t hear as often is the role Trump has played in feeding that anxiety. His demagoguery has given legitimacy to the so-called alt right movement, a self-proclaimed “leaderless,” movement centered on reversing the plight of the dispossessed white majority. The likes of a Donald Trump try to make us believe that the rise of this “dissatisfied” minority is organic in nature and is the prevailing sentiment of millions. Hardly.

A fraction of whites, fraction Republicans, fraction of conservatives are the hardcore supporters of Trump. If the electorate is one-third Republican, then do that math; that’s a small number. These champions of Libertarian values, the cornerstone of which are being left alone to live among themselves, claims to have millions of white people who believe as they do, but live under the tyrannies of government and “political correctness.” That’s not the case.

These bands of white supremacists are tacitly reminiscent of the Citizens’ Councils, formed in 1954 and mostly in the South; their terrorists tactics sought to stop integration of schools and other public facilities and to intimidate Blacks into not voting. More overt than the KKK, Council sympathizers (if not members), reared in two prominent incidents in the past 20 years, both in Charleston: in 1996, a drive-by shooting of three Black males and in 2015 and when Dylann Roof executed nine Blacks during a church service.

The Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985, still operates. Plus, David Duke, who has spoken before the Council, has said that Trump speaks for him and his ilk. Duke is currently running for a US Senate seat from the state of Louisiana. That ought to be scary. In addition to the Councils and high-profile white supremacists like Duke, anti-racism activists must remain vigilante against these “race realists” who reject racial equality and multiculturalism, homogeneity and forced integration. They profess to reject tribalism too. What irony because their determination to uphold segregation logically leads to tribalism.

The inheritance factor of white wealth in America gives this small minority the fiscal resources to have a loud voice. These are the same people who scream loudest for smaller government—specifically, diminishing the federal government—the single largest and most stable employer of Blacks in America. If you ever hear a candidate holler “smaller government,” just know that his/her roots are steeped in racism and segregation.

You see, they want the same federal government—who had to step in to end slavery, end legalized racial discrimination and even end racial segregation and helped force equality measures in this country—to become a zero factor. Don’t you forget that! Hell, the great weight that these undercover racist—the Councils’—had was curtailed by enforcement of federal civil rights legislation.

It is imperative that you take a minute to observe the faces of the voices that are crying about their “anxiety.” They are chiefly a non-intellectual, working class, rural lot. These are the same people that Barack Obama, the 2008 presidential candidate said, in times of anxiety, “cling to their religion and guns.” History doesn’t repeat itself, it simply goes into hibernation and reappears. Why are they anxious? Their white, Christian America is at stake and to preserve it, a boogie man is needed; the attacks on Mexicans (or any Latino for that matter), Muslims, Blacks, Jews, gays, women, and yes, even white women will be the “boogies man.” Each of these groups are denied some facet of The American Dream.

If you want to know what kind of tree it is? Just look at the fruit that’s fallen on the ground around it. Donald Trump can’t stay away from his racist core. He continues to surround himself with racists. Steve Bannon, who resigned from the alt-right Breitbart web site to become CEO of the Trump campaign, openly referred to Conservative Bill Kristol as “a renegade Jew.” Just know that now is the time where a lot of sweeping stuff under rugs is taking place. You better not get selective—or collective—amnesia.

Remember I mentioned David Duke, a current US Senatorial candidate and Trump supporter? When corporate media asked Trump whether he would disavow Duke’s white nationalist’s views, Trump claimed not to know who Duke was, and refused to disavow such white nationalism, in general. Even after it became common knowledge that Trump knew who Duke was, he doubled-down, refusing to reject Duke’s bigoted views.

History cannot be ignored. Paul Mannafort, Trump’s disgraced campaign executive (?) arranged for Ronald Reagan to launch his 1980 (?) campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the city where the KKK murdered Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in 1964 as they traveled the South—part of Freedom Summer. And many recall Trump’s full-page ad in the NY Times calling for the …..Central Park 5, whose lives were stolen but after 20 years were exonerated.

Knowing all of this, there are still some Blacks that are contemplating—and voicing—that he’s a possible choice for them? Trump’s despicable bigotry manifests in his support among Blacks, which hovers between 0 and 4%! Yet, someone Black had the gall to invite him (and he accepted) to speak in Detroit at a Black church Labor Day Weekend. SMH!

One last thing: be careful when you hear the ambiguous language of “freedom of choice.” Whether it’s used in the context of schools (yet not for abortions) or First Amendment-protected association, just know that phrase is the code word for contemporary racist segregation, the “American Dream” of American racial segregationists. The want the choice…to keep your children out of their schools, keep you out of their neighborhoods, away from their jobs and away from their money. They want the freedom to kill you and skip being prosecuted (just think, “Stand Your ground” laws). To do that, one must have a motivator for such a grand agenda. Fear is that motivator. It worked just fine for Adolf Hitler.

Now, keep in mind that this editorial is addressing the merits of fear. Personally, I don’t subscribe to fear. That’s nothing new for me; lacking the prevalence of fear is likely why I’ve gotten into so much trouble over the years. But again, fear has its merits. Fear just might keep you safe. You won’t progress, but you might retain the illusion of safety. Nothing is foolproof. Being led by smart people is dangerous…more so than being led by dumb people. Smart people will kill you slowly, resulting in a painful and excruciating prolonged death. Dumb people, on the other hand, will kill you quickly; they’ll use the dullest knife with the rustiest blade, but it’ll likely happen quickly enough that you won’t suffer (unless, of course, it’s lethal injection ). Fear will kill you too. Just beware who around you is living in fear, they just might Trump your courage.