archive

Of racial resentment

The nationalist’s delusion: Trump’s supporters backed a time-honored American political tradition, disavowing racism while promising to enact a broad agenda of discrimination. Martin Longman on how movement conservatism protects itself with racism. The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment. What makes President Trump casually dismiss black pain? White rage. Trump caught giving black staffers low-level positions, passing them over for promotions. Trump sounds ignorant of history — but racist ideas often masquerade as ignorance. What do you when the president is a paranoid delusional racist? Robert Mercer seems really racist.

Pandering to racists won’t get Democrats anywhere: There really isn’t a political center on key questions of race. Republican is not a synonym for racist: Conservatives must reckon with their policies’ discriminatory effects — that would be more likely if liberals stopped carelessly crying bigot. Racism may have gotten us into this mess, but identity politics can’t get us out. Solomon Jones on the biggest moments of racism in 2017.