He was always about race

[struggle4progress]

By Jennifer Rubin
August 18 at 5:47 PM

... while Bannon’s demise was inevitable, so was the train-wreck, potentially fatal news conference in which Trump’s true connection to white nationalism came gushing forth. Forget the canard that Trump’s campaign capitalized on economic insecurity. (On average, his voters were richer than Hillary Clinton’s.) Don’t buy the notion that this was all President Barack Obama’s fault and the result of identity politics — a kind of blame-the-victim that posits 21st century white racism is caused by 1960s racial and gender politics.

... at the heart of Trump’s campaign and the center of the Fox News operation, which incubated a Trump-ready electorate, has always been an appeal to white grievance, which Trump and Bannon were all too happy to gin up with fables about immigrants stealing whites’ jobs, African American killing fields in big cities, murderous illegal immigrants and, quite blatantly, an appeal to Southern infatuation with the Confederate myth of the “lost cause.” Trump’s vilifying all Muslims with a broad brush and his description of Mexicans as murderers were not incidental to his campaign; they were its distinguishing features ...

There were traditional Republicans in Trump’s coalition who thought the racial rhetoric was “just for the campaign,” and those voters fixated on illegal immigration who saw Trump as a vehicle for their policies. But without the white-grievance mongering — baked into his working-class white, less-educated voters — he would never have won.

The forced marriage between self-deluded, traditional Republicans and white-grievance mongering has collapsed. That’s a good thing. It also means the GOP is in shambles. Come to think of it, considering the circumstances, that’s a good thing, too ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/08/18/this-week-shows-trump-was-always-about-race/?utm_term=.e082b51fc795

[dalton99a]

1. Great article.

[Dave Starsky]

2. "He tells it like it is."

That's always what that statement meant. It had nothing whatsoever to do with how "truthful" he is. He is and always has been an obvious pathological liar. But he hates the blacks and the Mexicans, and that's good enough for them.