Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Trump won because he was a megaphone for whites raging at their diminishing influence

from https://newrepublic.com/article/138598/americas-repudiation-barack-obama

"Any notion of a permanent liberal majority composed of minorities, women, and millennial voters—the so-called Obama coalition—has been utterly shattered. The Republican Party, now an unapologetic whites-only party, is on track to control all three branches of government, to the detriment of everything liberals have achieved in the past eight years, toiling under the long shadow of the last Republican administration."

"Whatever we thought we knew about the American electorate has changed overnight. In electing Trump, voters have rejected everything Obama has done in the past eight years, ushering into office a man who has promised to undo all these accomplishments. Most of all, they have rejected what Obama and his election stood for: progress—real progress—on the issue of race."

"Trump's election is also a rejection, most directly, of Hillary Clinton and everything she stands for, including progress for women. That the first female presidential candidate would lose to Trump, an unrepentant sexist accused of serial sexual assault and harassment, is an embarrassment and a source of everlasting shame on this country. Surely other factors—Clinton's perceived flaws as a candidate, the failures of the elite technocratic class, the disruptions to community and identity caused by globalization—led some to vote for an ethno-nationalist populist, but what's striking is the racial component of Trump's election."

"...
race was the deciding factor because Trump launched his political career with racist attacks on Obama, questioning whether he was an American citizen. He then launched his presidential campaign with a racist attack on Mexican immigrants, describing them as rapists and thieves. He expanded his platform of white revanchism by calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. All of this is known, and has been repeated ad nauseum throughout this election. Even if Trump voters had other, more sympathetic reasons to vote for Trump, it doesn't change the fact that they elected a man who was openly running on a platform of white supremacy—whose political raison d'être was to be a megaphone for whites raging at their diminishing influence. That alone stands as a rebuke to Obama."

"
Trump has unearthed new white voters in rural areas who sat out previous elections and have been activated like sleeper cells. And again, it doesn't change the fact that, even if some of these voters were Obama Democrats, they had no problem with voting for the most openly racist presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was passed."




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