The American news media is deceiving the world when it consistently describes No. 45 as an aberration in the history of the United States presidency. Equally deceiving is its describing and romanticizing the American voting public as some kind of godly people devoted to liberty and justice for all citizens of this country.

Rather than being an aberration, No. 45 is a direct descendant of the presidents, including Saint George Washington and Saint Thomas Jefferson, who bought, sold, owned and exploited African men, women and children. No. 45 also is a direct descendant of those presidents who did absolutely nothing from the Reconstruction Era through the 1960s as leaders in the former Confederate States of America for economically and politically oppressed black people, including those who fought in the Civil War, World War I, World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars respectively.

No. 45 also is a direct descendant of those presidents who sat by passively as thousands of black folks were lynched and otherwise murdered by white supremacists and racists, mostly in the former Confederate States of America. Their victims included black combat veterans. Therefore, No. 45, a draft dodger, is by no definition an aberration.

As for the American voting public, through the years, the overwhelming majority of them looked on, often with relish, as atrocities were committed against black people. They voted for politicians who did little, if anything, to stop or punish the white supremacist-racist terrorists. It was overwhelmingly white American men and women who put No. 45 into the White House. Not one of them can say that he or she was deceived by him. He made it very clear in the Republican primary campaigns and in the general election campaign who and what he was and is. In fact, that’s one positive thing that can be said about him.

No. 45 is the personification of most white males in this country and, unfortunately, a sizable number of black men for whom I have coined the name “Blawhis,” i.e. black-whites.

When, if ever, is the American media going to tell it like it is? No. 45 is not an aberration, and the white American voting public is not composed of bamboozled innocents.

A. PETER BAILEY

Washington

The writer is an author, journalist and lecturer.