Trump and Injuns
The connections between US President Donald Trump and Indigenous peoples across USA and Canada are interesting and to some a little disturbing.
One would expect that “Indians” would have a problem with supporting Trump. After all he had tried to end birthright citizenship, a constitutional right, to Indigenous Peoples and others.
Trump and Indigenous
One of the problems surrounded jurisdiction issues that didn’t apply to USA Native Americans because of treaties and other rights. Trump was trying to overturn a 1924 Congressional Indian Citizen Act. So Natives wouldn’t be considered citizens of the USA. That raises many questions on what this would mean in terms of what rights they would have.
Indian Citizenship Act
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 (43 Stat. 253, enacted June 2, 1924) was an act of the United States Congress that declared Native Americans born within the United States are US citizens. Although the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that any person born in the United States is a citizen, there is an exception for persons not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the federal government. This language was generally taken to mean members of various tribes that were treated as separate sovereignties: they were citizens of their tribal nations.
I went to Standing Rock where the Sioux were trying to stop a pipeline from going through their traditional territory. It was a problem. One beer deliveryman said,”It’s the safest way to transport oil to the masses of people who use it and need it.
Yes, we run the risk of jeopardizing the water system and the environment, but there are already pipelines under the Missouri River. It’s still safer than trains, look at Quebec.” We never learned what Quebec had to do with that comment but maybe we should try to find out what was meant.
So what is the attraction some Indigenous people have with Trump. Even after his actions that show a lack of support for us and our rights he is followed by our brothers and sisters. In the US House of Representative and the Senate Four members are Native. Of that four, three are Republicans.
Trump and Injuns
In Canada despite the tariffs and other moves by the Trumpster Indigenous people in Canada support him. It’s a minority but not as small as we would think.
Perhaps it’s because, as many Americans have said, he is not the type of politician we are used to. For some a person who said the things they have always thought but never dard say or do until he can on the scene.
But there was another stronger connection and that was the one Trump made his own- religion. Most of the Indigenous people I know who support him are right wing Pentacostal. He has tried to use God to support his position as President along with his decrees, Is this not irony considering that the Kings and Queens denied by the USA in their revolution claimed their titles were divine rights.
Much as Trump is doing now and the No Kings protests only represented three per cent of the USA’s population at best. Even though it was named as the biggest protest that country has seen.
Trump and Injuns
Trump’s popularity seems to be dropping across both countries even among hard core supporters of the Republican party. Recently Trump recognized and renewed the US Federal holiday Columbus Day but refused to accept Indigenous Peoples’ Day as something Americans should celebrate.
In celebration we should ask what is that old nickname that Trump seems to have taken upon himself? We called politicians like him Walking Eagle. It was because we saw he was and is so full of crap he can’t fly.
Nevertheless he is a leader chosen by the people and has given us one important lesson- respecting someone merely because they have become a president, prime minister or even an Indigenous chief is foolish. Just as everyone else in a democracy it must be earned and is not attached to a title.
