Thread by @ajplus

Why is President Trump trafficking in racism, and doubling down when he’s called out on it? Because, writes @tonykaron, it's been the key to his success – and that fact poses a profound challenge to his Democratic Party opponents: (1/13)

Where Nixon, Reagan and even Hillary Clinton used "dog-whistles," coding racist messages in innocent language, Trump’s is an unapologetic megaphone racism. His attacks on "political correctness" tell white voters to feel no shame over their bigotry (2/13)

https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1151171677201555466

Nixon rallied white voters with "tough on crime" language (as did Bill Clinton), Reagan raged against "welfare queens" and Hillary Clinton spoke of Obama failing to connect with "hard-working Americans, white Americans." (3/13)

Ta-Nehisi Coates has called Trump "America's first white president," noting that his openly white-nationalist appeal to racist resentments about a changing, more diverse America sets him apart from his predecessors. (4/13)
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

And, Coates writes, his strategy worked: Trump won nearly every white demographic across region and social class. He won among white women by 9%, men by 31%, college-educated whites by 3%, non-college by 37%, 18 to 29-year-olds by 4%, 30 to 44-year-olds by 17%, etc. (5/13)

"White identity" is a significant social force in today's USA, says Prof Ashley Jardina. But just like nationalist and sectarian identities fueling conflicts in the Balkans and Iraq, it required activation by political manipulators. (6/13)
newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/t…

Trump weaponized white identity as no previous president dared to do, and it worked – political scientists find racism a far stronger indicator than economic anxiety in accounting for his 2016 win. (7/13)
vox.com/policy-and-pol…

Looking ahead to 2020, @jbouie expects Trump will trade on racist resentment against Democrats championing an inclusive America – and, he warns, Dems are unlikely to win back the millions of white voters who flipped from Obama to Trump. (8/13)
slate.com/news-and-polit…

Racist demagogy works for Trump by forcing Democrats to engage on identity, says @AnandWrites, which "makes the terrain more hospitable to him and tickles the reptile brain of his supporters in a way Medicare struggles to rival." (9/13)

https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1150845118863351813

In addition to embracing racist messaging, Trump and his party are working ever more aggressively to counter the demographic trends that challenge their hold on power, by, for example, stopping poorer people of color from voting. (10/13)
newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…

False claims about millions of illegal votes cast in 2016 pave the way for ever-tighter regulations designed to prevent millions of U.S. citizens from casting their votes, while gerrymandering works to dilute the impact of votes by people of color (11/13)
washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2…

But, warns Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the midterms showed that get-out-the-vote efforts won't be enough without a radical Democratic program that excites voters — and a willingness to fight rather than compromise once in office. (12/13)
jacobinmag.com/2018/11/2018-m…

Could Trump and the GOP's decision to double down on racism and white identity politics mean that America's political future will be shaped less by Democrat policy proposals than by the struggle over who votes – and who gets to vote? (13/13)