A Bunker in the White House?

Is Archie Bunker’s Rich Cousin the President of the United States?

All in the Family 1971-1979 was created by Norman Lear. It was part of a series of shows that examined a grittier side of the American portrait. Paired with Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Gloria, Lear’s shows openly dealt with confrontational issues that many believed were tearing the nation apart.

In many respects, the comedy of All in the Family was about open bigotry. Archie Bunker, the main character, was the representative of the white working man. He lived in Queens, New York in what was once a segregated neighborhood. Archie often lamented the arrival of immigrants and detested a Civil Rights Movement which he felt left him outside of the American Dream.

Yet, Archie was not outside of the Dream but a part of it. He lived comfortably in his own home, his wife did not work and he was able to support his daughter and her meagerly employed husband. In spite of his success, Archie was the ugly American that the audience loved to hate. It was always a question of what would he do next? Who could he offend next?

Most of Lear’s shows left the air during the Reagan years because the nation wanted a different portrayal of our national character. Archie, the urban bigot, was slowly replaced by Roseanne, a more dysfunctional rural character whose comedic hostilities were disguised in the struggles of daily existence. In Roseanne’s America, whites were caught up in living day to day. Unlike Archie they were on the cusp of the Dream. At the same time, the depiction of African American characters gained a sophistication as the Cosby show took center stage. Cosby and his family had secured the Dream and were models of successful minorities.

From the 1980s into the twenty-first century, television posited that racism left the coasts and resurfaced in the Heartland. And our national phobias of race, class and gender began to diminish on evening television programming. Americans of a certain age and cultural perspective wanted to believe this construction-that the real bigots could only be found in one part of the nation. Then came the election of 2008 and that perception was weakened. However, the election of 2016 laid those beliefs to rest.

Sometimes art captures the essence of real life. In 2015, another famous Queens resident resurrected Archie Bunker in the guise of a billionaire. Donald Trump could be Archie’s rich cousin.

In a 1972 episode, Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) is visited by Sammy Davis, jr. after the entertainer forgets his suitcase in Archie’s cab.  Most people remember the episode because Davis kisses Archie when he leaves, but the highlight of the visit is a brief conversation on slavery. Archie effectively tells Sammy Davis, Jr. that God put all the races in different parts of the world and that all the different races need to go back to where they belong. Sammy Davis replies that his people did not come to America because they wanted to but rather because someone came and got them! The show’s writers had rebuked Archie for not accepting the American Dream and acknowledging America's history!

This statement of separating races and going back to where one belongs has been uttered in America for centuries. It has been evoked in actions by local groups, local politicians and even by firebrand ex-Confederates types who denounced Civil Rights, but never in public by the highest-ranking government official. Not until July 14, 2019, when it was tweeted by an elected president of the United States.

This is not to say that there were not racists in the White House. Woodrow Wilson, the former president of Princeton, Governor of New Jersey and President of the United States, was a staunch segregationist who detested blacks. Lyndon Johnson often used the N word in private and pronounced "Negro" in an unusual way that sounded close to the N word. However, President Trump has crossed a line in the sand. While candidate Trump's racism was cloaked in nationalism and the fear of immigrants, his presidency's racism is blatant white nationalism with chanting mobs that often resemble Hollywood images of secret nationalist rallies.

Archie Bunker did not create a nation of vocal followers. His politics forced alignments with most deciding that Archie's views did not represent the nation. In contrast Donald Trump has made a silent minority a force to be reckoned with. "Team Trump" is now composed of actual nationalists, nationalist sympathizers, and quiet supporters, all who feign ignorance of words uttered and chanted at campaign rallies. "Team Trumpers" use words like "anti-American", "traitors", "socialists", "communists", and "anti-Semites" to describe enemies of the state-those who disagree with their leader. Red MAGA hats and shirts are slowly transforming from campaign items to nationalistic banners. The president defends his supporters as loyal patriots!

President Trump's base supporters have impacted average Americans to confront their views on race, class, and gender in ways that Norman Lear never could have imagined.  Many Americans have overlooked statements that Mexicans are rapists and criminals, Muslim bans, Charlottesville, attacks on gays, attacks on Muslim, Latino, and African American politicians, and the placement of Central American children in cages. Such actions would have caused most Americans to denounce their leader, but to the contrary countless “good people” including Republicans and Evangelicals defend and have defended heinous comments and actions

This time, however, the tweet and its subsequent defense left no doubt about the racist tones in Mr. Trump’s language. These words, telling four American congresswomen of color to leave America and go back to their terrible nations clearly established the president as a racist.

And now that the entire nation, if not the world, knows that Donald J. Trump is a racist, the real question is what is America going to do?