patrick.net

The fact is that Americans have grown comfortable with racism resting just beneath the surface of our politics — to be activated whenever a politician or a community needed it, or some racist incident exhumed it only for us to bury it once again. What has resulted is an illusion that blinds us to what was actually happening right in front of our noses and in our heads — we believed that our country had become less racist, because we were not as brazen as we once were.

Trump has shattered that illusion. He rode race, the third rail of American politics, straight to the White House. He challenged Obama’s citizenship, called Mexicans rapists and criminals, proposed to ban all Muslims from entering the country, insisted on the need for “law and order,” argued that immigration was changing the “character” of the United States and openly courted white supremacists. He dog-whistled in a way that let no one feign deafness. Trump promised to dismantle Obamacare and provide a “beautiful” alternative, to make Mexico pay for “the wall” and to restore America’s manufacturing greatness — jobs and tax relief included. His pledges spoke directly to the forgotten American’s sense of victimhood: that he had been left behind during the Obama years and that his way of life was under threat.

Trump exists in a sweet spot between the soft bigotry of self-contradictory American liberals and the loud racism of those who shout “nigger” and demand that Latino people go back to Mexico, all stuck in an economic system that cannot reconcile the startling gap between the top 1% and those busting their behinds to make ends meet. Trump sits right there, amid the mess and false promises, with a smirk on his face.