Could this moment awaken white America?
Trump is first overt racist to be elected president in living memory
RACISM
It would be poetic justice if this is the moment that finally awakens white America to the menace they sent to the White House four years ago and galvanizes them to atone for that monumental mistake come November.
As essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in We Were Eight Years in Power: “Every Trump voter is most certainly not a white supremacist … But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.”
The implications of that choice – as evinced by Donald Trump’s authoritarian, militaristic response to protests across America – could trigger the white-voter remorse that’s been too long coming.
A recent ABC/Ipsos poll found that two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the protests, sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Three-quarters of Americans recognize that Floyd’s killing is part of a bigger problem – police violence against people of colour. Trump is on the wrong side of public opinion on both counts.
Donald Trump is not only the first overt racist to be elected president in living memory, his political success is built on dividing America along racial or ethnic lines.
It was Trump who claimed there were “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis that marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was Trump who wanted to bar immigrants from “shit hole countries,” meaning nations with non-white majorities. It was Trump who caged Latinx children.
And, when the killing of George Floyd sent millions into the streets – in America, in Canada, and across the world – to protest racial injustice, it was Trump who cast demonstrators as “thugs” and promised to “dominate” the streets.
Peaceful protesters in Washington’s Lafayette Square, adjacent to the White House, were forcibly removed by sketchy, uniformed federal officers, many of whom wore no identifying insignia. The Square was cleared to make way for Trump’s photo op with a Bible he’s never read in front of a church he never attends.
As vile as Trump’s actions have been since Floyd’s killing, they should come as no surprise to the white Americans who elected him.
The apologists for Trump voters like to portray them as disillusioned, down-trodden and economically-displaced “white working class” Americans. But the characterization doesn’t withstand scrutiny.
Trump’s support came overwhelmingly from white Americans, but it wasn’t confined by income. Trump won whites earning less than $50,000 – the working class – by 20 points; whites earning $50,000 to $100,000 by 28 points, and whites earning more than $100,000 by 14 points.
White America elected Trump and knew – or should have known – what they were getting when they did so.
He was a reality TV personality who built a political base by advocating “birtherism,” an attempt to invalidate the first black American president, Barack Obama, by questioning his citizenship.
When – against his better judgement – Obama produced his birth certificate proving he was born in the USA, Trump shifted his attack, and demanded that Obama produce his college records.
Trump insisted that Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, wasn’t intelligent enough for an Ivy League education, and doubled-down on the “not smart enough” racist slur by asserting that Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, was actually ghost written by a white man.
But even before his attacks on Obama, Trump’s racist record was there for all to see. He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, and even after they were totally exonerated, Trump refused to acknowledge their innocence.
He announced he was running for president by denouncing Latin American immigrants and asylum-seekers as criminals and rapists. He claimed he couldn’t get a fair shake from the courts on charges against his phoney college because the judge was “a Mexican.”
As Coates notes, pointing to that subset of American who voted for Obama and for Trump doesn’t disprove racism, rather it confirms a central tenet of white supremacy – that whites are entitled to that which blacks must work harder to earn.
“To secure the White House, Obama needed to be a Harvardtrained lawyer with a decade of political experience and an incredible gift for speaking to a cross section of the country. Donald Trump needed only money and white bluster.”
Race-baiting helped Trump win the presidency. His insensitivity to racial injustice and his authoritarian response to those who want to change it, could well help to defeat him when Americans vote in November. That would be poetic justice.
Jim Vibert consulted or worked for five Nova Scotia governments. He now keeps a close and critical eye on those in power.