Ben Boychuck
Says billionaire appealed to more than white identity politics, and he may prove to be an inclusive leader.
Eight years of identity politics run rampant has done more to sow discord in the United States than anything Trump has said, let alone had a chance to do.
The liberal case against Trump was built on snark, insinuation, distortion and calumny. “He’s a bigot.” “He’s a fascist.” “He’s a threat to democracy.” Those are not arguments. Those are assertions. There could be no reasonable response — none except what a plurality of voters did on Tuesday.
Defeating Clinton was a rebuke of a noxious premise. Race relations are arguably far worse today than they were eight year ago. Voters clearly had enough of the divisiveness — so they went with the candidate the press labeled the most divisive in decades. Go figure.
Trump rejected the language of race. Instead, he spoke candidly to black voters. At an August rally in Michigan, he said: “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”
At least some voters seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt. Exit poll data show Trump improving the GOP’s standing with African-Americans. Eight percent of black voters went for Trump, compared with just 6 percent four years ago. Not bad considering one summer survey had Trump polling at zero with black voters.
As Manhattan Institute senior fellow Oren Cass points out in a post-election analysis for City Journal, real turnout analysis will have to await a final vote count. “But,” he writes, “the available data runs directly counter to the casual assumption that Trump’s victory relied on narrow and exclusionary appeal, that it indicates an ascendant white identity politics, or that it portends further segregation of the electorate.”
On election night, Trump said: “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” Not just whites. Trump has set out an ambitious agenda. Who knows whether he can pay for it, much less get it past a wary Republican Congress. But the postelection meanness so far has come largely from one side — and it isn’t the winning one.