It's Gotten A Lot Harder To Act Like Whiteness Doesn't Shape Our Politics

[kwassa]

in which the author Gene Demby teases out the different elements of support for Donald Trump, and notes that much of his support is misidentified.

The conclusion is:

When Trump's supporters aren't being written off as intellectually incapable of knowing a huckster when they see one, their motivations are often ascribed to their being "working class." But the working class today is nearly 40 percent people of color — and among people of color, Trump is profoundly unpopular. His coalition is nearly entirely white. Even the class part of the "working class" narrative is inaccurate; Trump's supporters are wealthier than most Americans, and have higher incomes than supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. The "working class revolt" explanation for Trump's rise is overstated — and it can be a useful dodge to avoid talking about explanations involving racial grievance.

There have been outlets and pundits this election cycle who've shown they're willing and able to dig into the role that racial grievance plays in How Trump Happened. Others haven't, and continue not to. And that's a problem. When we don't grapple with whiteness in our politics directly and explicitly — to talk about the fact that not-insignificant numbers of white voters are motivated more by identity politics than by ideology or faith — we're essentially agreeing to misidentify some of the most important dynamics of this cycle.

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/13/477803909/its-gotten-a-lot-harder-to-act-like-whiteness-doesnt-shape-our-politics

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Very, very good article.

When we don't grapple with whiteness in our politics directly and explicitly — to talk about the fact that not-insignificant numbers of white voters are motivated more by identity politics than by ideology or faith — we're essentially agreeing to misidentify some of the most important dynamics of this cycle.

[DonCoquixote]

2. exactly what Obama got slammed for

by stating the truth:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/04/obama-on-small-town-pa-clinging-to-religion-guns-xenophobia-007737

The sad thing is, that in the rural white areas, many of the people who have been GENUINELY, HORRIFYINGLY SCREWED wind up hurting themselves because they have been trained not to empathize or sympathize with the people who share the working class with them, people of color. Oxycontin can and should be discussed with the same layer of hatred as crack, but it is not, why, because a bunch of white-owned drug companies will sue if their cash cow is threatened, and they know the rural whites are their cash cow. So they will support Trump, who is a clueless idiot good at keeping other clueless idiots in the same direction, away from them.

[JI7]

3. when people talk about working class they usually leave out POC and women

And about the white men supporting trump i have asked why aren't they supporting sanders .

If it was about mostly economics why not support Sanders instead of trump ?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Trump-suckers think USA overwhelmingly white and conservative. Clueless on both counts.

You see it over and over again in the conservative blogs and forums: "If the Republicans would just run true conservative candidates, they would win in a landslide".

We've got news for them: Trump is no conservative.

But they don't care because they only hear one thing: "the wall".

[stevenleser]

5. This is why I think Trump's general election strength is overestimated.

I don't know how the polling companies are designing their strata/cohorts, but Trump is going to draw massive amounts of African Americans, Latinos, Muslims and Women to come to the polls just to vote against him.

He will do about as bad as Romney did with African Americans and much worse with women, Muslims and Latinos. Meanwhile, Romney ran up the white vote about as much as anyone can, Trump can't really improve on him much there.

When you add all of that up it amounts to Trump having no path to not only get to 270 electoral votes, I don't think he has a path to 200 electoral votes.

[kwassa]

6. I sure hope you are right.

The only upside to Trump being elected is that it would probably destroy the Republican party.

[Number23]

7. From your lips to God's ears, steven!

but Trump is going to draw massive amounts of African Americans, Latinos, Muslims and Women to come to the polls just to vote against him.