Trump's Race To The Bottom, Con't

NY Times columnist Peter Baker finally calls Trump what he is: the most vocal defender of a white America.

Not in generations has a sitting president so overtly declared himself the candidate of white America. While Mr. Trump’s campaign sought to temper the culture war messaging at the Republican National Convention last month by showcasing Black and Hispanic supporters who denied that he is a racist, the president himself has increasingly made appeals to the grievances of white supporters a centerpiece of his campaign to win a second term.

The message appears designed to galvanize supporters who have cheered what they see as a defiant stand against political correctness since the days when he kicked off his last presidential campaign in 2015 by denouncing, without evidence, Mexicans crossing the border as “rapists.” While he initially voiced concern over the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis this spring, which touched off nationwide protests, he has focused since then almost entirely on defending the police and condemning demonstrations during which there have been outbreaks of looting and violence.

He has described American cities as hotbeds of chaos, played to “suburban housewives” he casts as fearful of low-income people moving into their neighborhoods, sought to block a move — backed by the Pentagon and Republican lawmakers — to rename Army bases named for Confederate generals, criticized NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag, called Black Lives Matters a “symbol of hate” and vowed to strip funding from cities that do not take what he deems tough enough action against protesters.

In effect, he is reaching out to a subset of white voters who think the news media and political elites see Trump supporters as inherently racist. Mr. Trump has repeatedly rejected the notion that America has a problem with systemic racial bias, dismissing instances of police brutality against Black Americans as the work of a few “bad apples,” in his words.

“Trump is the most extreme, and he has done something that is beyond the bounds of anything we have seen,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Playing with racism is a dangerous game. It’s not that you can do it a little bit or do it slyly or do it with a dog whistle. It’s all dangerous, and it’s all potentially violent.”

Aides said Mr. Trump’s actions were aimed at eliminating pernicious views that actually exacerbate prejudice. “President Trump believes that all men and women are created equal, and he will stand against anti-American philosophies of all kinds that promote racial division,” Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said on Sunday.

Public views of Mr. Trump flow through a racial prism. A poll by CBS News last week found that 66 percent of registered voters believed Mr. Trump favored white people, versus 4 percent who said he worked against their interests. By contrast, 20 percent thought he favored Black people and 50 percent said he worked against Black people. Among Black voters, 81 percent said he worked against their interests.

In the poll, Mr. Trump led former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger, among white voters by 51 percent to 43 percent, but trailed among Black voters with just 9 percent support, compared with 85 percent for Mr. Biden. Among Hispanic voters, Mr. Biden led by 63 percent to 25 percent.

I mean I've been saying this for years now, but to see a white Times columnist admit it is something else. And yes, he's 100% correct. Trump is the candidate of white grievance politics, pure and simple. It's a smart move on his part, the American electorate is 70% white, and in battleground states it's at least 70% white, if not 80% or even 90%. It's basic math.

Let's take a look at 2016 Wisconsin, where Trump won by 23k votes out of almost 3 million total votes, or 0.75%. CNN's exit poll of the state shows a pretty bleak picture for one of the biggest Rust Belt union manufacturing states.



Wisconsin's electorate was 86% white then. It's probably going to be a couple points less now, but even a small shift in these categories could have changed the race.  Also, Libertarian Gary Johnson's presence almost certainly made Trump's victory smaller than it would have been without him in the race.

Biden is specifically doing better than Clinton with white college-educated men, and with non-college educated white women. That's where he's getting his lead from.  But Trump doesn't need a lot in order to shift the race back to him in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and even Minnesota.

So far, Biden's lead in Wisconsin polling is remaining remarkably steady at right at seven points.



That also means that there remains a healthy chunk of undecided/other voters out there too. And they all broke for Trump in the last two weeks of the election. Trump is playing the final strategy, and it's his best card for a reason.

What I'm saying is, we have work to do up to the election and for years afterward.