Trump's Racist Rhetoric Might Be Hurting His 2020 Re-Election Chances
From the day Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy in 2015, smearing immigrants at the southern border as drug-smuggling rapists who bring "lots of problems," appeals to bigotry have been integral to his political persona. If his recent spate of racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen of color are any indication, the president will again exploit racial animus and and xenophobic fearmongering to the greatest possible extent in his re-election bid.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll, however, suggests that in the current political climate, this strategy might be less useful to Trump in 2020 than it was in 2016. The poll, conducted in July, was designed to measure the racial beliefs and political engagement of voting-age adult Americans. One set of questions asked respondents if they perceive that white people and black people receive equal treatment from law enforcement officials, for example, and in public places like restaurants, hospitals, and courts. In another section, respondents were asked to place whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians on spectrums ranging from, among others, peaceful to violent and hard-working to lazy.
The results are troubling for a man who depends heavily on bigotry to generate voter enthusiasm: Those who do not harbor anti-black or anti-Hispanic prejudices say they're more likely to vote in 2020 than those who hold negative stereotypes about minority groups. Before the last election, notes Reuters's Chris Kahn, the opposite was true: voters who "generally rated whites as superior to blacks" were more enthusiastic than their counterparts about voting. All told, 82 percent of respondents who reject anti-black attitudes say they're "very likely" to vote next fall. That figure represents an increase of 12 points from 2016, when only 70 percent of such respondents said the same. It is also seven points higher than the percentage of likely 2020 voters who believe white people are superior to black people.
Compared to results of versions of this survey conducted in 2017 and 2018, the Reuters/Ipsos poll also yields evidence that feelings of "racial anxiety" among white voters, which are often credited with propelling him to victory in 2016, have softened considerably during Trump's presidency. Only 29 percent of white respondents now agree that "America must protect and preserve its White European heritage," compared to 38 percent last summer and 36 percent the summer before.
One plausible explanation is that voters are less comfortable with racism now that they see the consequences of its presence in the White House, particularly after events like the recent shooting in El Paso, where a white nationalist who feared a "Hispanic invasion of Texas" targeted Hispanic shoppers at a Wal-Mart. It is also plausible that once-racially anxious voters feel less racially anxious these days because Trump's acts as president—his Muslim bans, his enhanced deportation agenda, his characterizations of neo-Nazis as "very fine people," and so on—have gone a long way towards assuaging their anxiety and addressing their grievances.
Whatever the explanation for this apparent attitudinal shift, though, the poll's most important takeaway is which people are most excited about casting ballots next fall. “There is some indication that racial liberals are more energized than the racially intolerant,” University of Michigan political scientist Vincent Hutchings told Reuters. “That would seem to be good news for the Democrats and bad news for the Republicans.”
This is not only true among committed anti-Trump partisans. Many registered independent voters, too, are taking positions that more closely mirror those of so-called racial liberals—and those of registered Democrats. When asked how they think America will fare once whites are a minority, for example, 65 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of independents say the country will be neither better nor worse off. Only 50 percent of Republicans said the same. Meanwhile, 30 percent of Republicans predicted that America will be worse off in a post-white-majority era, compared to just 10 percent of Democrats and 15 percent of independents.
Despite his frequent assertions to the contrary, Donald Trump's 2016 election victory was a narrow one, which leaves him little margin for error in 2020—especially among white working-class voters in traditionally blue states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which he needed to win in order to put him over the top in the Electoral College. If enough voters are no longer enthusiastic about the bigoted sentiments he rode all the way to the White House or more voters are motivated to vote against those same sentiments, this time, the president's racism might be what pushes him out of it.
Donald Trump evoked an old racist trope in telling four American congresswomen of color to “go back” to their own countries. The Constitution says otherwise.
Originally Appeared on GQ
