This post by Greg Sargent makes me think that I’m not crazy when I say that Trump’s escalation into explicit racial incitement is dangerous in great part not simply in itself, but if it is met with insufficient pushback from the Democrats and others. Sargent helped clarify something that has been staring a lot of us in the face: that this is not a matter where there can be compromise or mutual understanding. There is no middle ground. The president and his party are simply and catastrophically in the wrong, and to speak of it as a normal political disagreement fails the public. What we face is not simply the president saying racist things and proving himself a racist for anyone who might have doubted it; it is that the president has made clear that he will rely on the incitement of racial hatred to push for a vision of America that is rooted in white supremacism and the dehumanization of non-whites.
This is why the great danger right now is that this white supremacist language and approach to governance will somehow be normalized, through repetition and acquiescence; that what should lie outside the bounds of acceptability in a democratic society makes its way in — because an ideology based on hate and inequality can never be squared with democracy, but only destroy it. And as Sargent points out elsewhere, the president’s insistence that his remarks and tweets about the Democratic congresswomen aren’t racist is in itself a huge deal; Trump wants people to believe that racism is actually acceptable in politicians, by engaging in it while simultaneously disclaiming racist intent. The effect is to mainstream racism.
So it is a little bit like being caught in a Black Mirror episode to read that some moderate Democrats believe that the last several days have actually been an enormous win for Donald Trump, and that “the party was playing into his hands by spending so much time condemning his remarks.” Sargent’s response is spot on: addressing these moderate Democrats, he writes, “No matter how purple your district is, if you can’t explain to swing voters why Trump’s racist and white-nationalist displays and provocations are unacceptable in terms that they’ll understand — if this isn’t a fight you want to have — then you should ask yourself what the heck you’re doing there in the first place.”
But I think you can go a step further and say that this is a challenge, but also an opportunity, for the Democratic party as a whole. The president has now placed not only himself, but the entirety of the acquiescent GOP, on a collision course with the past 200-plus years of slow, painful, and sometimes circuitous progress towards racial justice in this country. Like many unscrupulous and immoral politicians before him, he has discovered that hate sells. But there is nothing defensible about white supremacism, about inciting hatred against immigrants, against telling black Americans to go back to Africa. This is bottom-of-the-barrel, white trash language, the language of demagogues and cowards, in service of an evil and anti-democratic vision. We are way past claims of cultural anxiety or economic insecurity, at a point where basic empathy and perceptions of common humanity have been left behind in favor of hatred and tribalism.
So what many perceive as Trump’s greatest weapon is also his greatest weakness; but it takes conscious and concerted effort to make sure his embrace of hate does him in. To speak optimistically, it beggars the imagination to think that the Democratic Party might not be able to articulate a countervailing, persuasive vision of what this country really stands for. In fact, plenty of Democrats and others have already been doing this. And the Democrats need to grasp the opportunity of this moment, the chance to break not simply Trump but the entire GOP on the anvil of white supremacy.
As frightening as this time in our history is, we can’t lose sight of the fact that Trump and the GOP are acting out of weakness, not strength. They are embarked on a high-risk strategy that can only work if they are allowed to dissemble about their racist and anti-democratic ends, and if the majority allows itself to be cowed by the displays of hate — hate that has at its root fear, cowardice, and ignorance.