Last edited Sat Nov 25, 2017, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Dont make the mistake of thinking David Duke is a unique phenomenon confined to Louisiana rednecks and yahoos. Hes not, Percy said. Hes not just appealing to the old Klan constituency, hes appealing to the white middle class. And dont think that he or somebody like him wont appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens.
These supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.
a majority of white voters backed a candidate who explicitly pledged to use the power of the state against people of color and religious minorities, and stood by him as that pledge has been among the few to survive the first year of his presidency. Their support was enough to win the White House, and has solidified a return to a politics of white identity that has been one of the most destructive forces in American history. This all occurred before the eyes of a disbelieving press and political class, who plunged into fierce denial about how and why this had happened.
Trumps great political insight was that Obamas time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound upon many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obamas presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the psychological wage of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not taken place, and could not take place.
If you haven't read the article yet, please do! Well worth the time.