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Trump and the Racist Right

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Donald Trump's Southern strategy: What his Alabama pep rally revealed about the right's new racial politics

Personally, I can't decide whether Trump is playing Nixon or George Wallace. Of course, in polite journalistic company, we're not supposed to say either. We're still supposed to act like Trump's anti-immigrant campaign represents the legitimate frustration of the white working class. The frustration is real, but the solution is Nixonian: Get those white voters focused on a menacing “other,” rather than plutocrats like Trump.

The Alabama spectacle gave Trump's team the opportunity to showcase his Nixonian “Southern strategy.” Sure, he's focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told the Washington Post, but he's looking forward to Southern Super Tuesday, March 1. “Then comes the South. That's the path to the nomination.”

Still, Lewandowski and other Trump backers aren't quite sure how to deal with the racism they're channeling. On CNN, the Trump campaign manager ducked a question about cries of “white power” heard in the Alabama crowd, though he did condemn the attacks on a homeless Latino man by Trump supporters in Boston last week. (Trump himself refused to condemn the attackers, then backtracked.)

“If that is what happened in Boston, that is not acceptable in any nature,” Lewandowski told Jim Acosta. Then he added an odd note: “We should not be ashamed to be Americans and we should be proud of our heritage, and proud to be American.”

It's hard not to hear a dog whistle in that comment about “our heritage,” given the element of white nationalist support Trump is enjoying.

Dear Joan, I LOVE to be lectured about racist white people by white people. By the way, what is the diversity looking like at your magazine again??

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More terrifying than ISIS and economic meltdown: Donald Trump's Southern strategy!

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Red Square wrote:More terrifying than ISIS and economic meltdown: Donald Trump's Southern strategy!
The only thing that trumps Trump's (bwahaha pun intended) Southern Strategy is climate change! Climate change is responsible for everything, including but not limited to:

  1. Too much rain
  2. Too little rain
  3. Genocide in Africa
  4. Too cold
  5. Too warm
  6. Too much arctic ice
  7. Not enough arctic ice
  8. Chernobyl
  9. Too many hurricanes
  10. No hurricanes
  11. ISIS



 
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