Trump’s three signature racially coded themes — immigration, terrorism, and crime – were among the possible choices; a third of Trump supporters picked one of those as their top issue. Two-thirds did not. 51 percent chose traditional kitchen-table issues like the economy, health care, Social Security, taxes, or the national debt. Another 8 percent chose culture-war issues like abortion, gay rights, or “morality.” And the remaining 8 percent chose “military strength,” “foreign policy,” or gun control.
Let me be clear. All of the following are true: From the start, Trump has put naked appeals to racism at the center of his campaign. In the process, he has magnetized a congeries of alt-right eugenicists, Confederate flag-wavers, and paranoid Mexican-haters to his cause. And then he went on to win 52 percent of the Republican vote in the primaries; he’ll probably win at least 40 percent of the popular vote in November. [...]
And that seems to be the case all around the world. Take the example of France, where the level of racism in political discourse seems to reach new heights every week and the far-right has been on the ascendant for decades. Yet the percentage of the French who say there are “too many immigrants in France” fell from 75 percent in 1988 to 50 percent in 2012. The percentage who think immigration is a “source of cultural enrichment” rose from 44 percent in 1992 to 75 percent in 2009. The percentage who agree that immigrant workers “should be seen as being at home here, since they contribute to the French economy” rose from 66 percent in 1992 to 84.5 percent in 2009. [...]
The numbers will be clear: downscale whites are a big pool of untapped votes. Yet if a cordon sanitaire is placed around that demographic territory and hung with the notorious label, “Trump Vote,” the Democrats will be even more likely to let the party system drift down its current path: into the culture-war politics of the reactionary Tammany-versus-Klan 1920s, rather than the class-based politics that followed.
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