Vox: How Trump both stokes and obscures his supporters racial resentment
Recently, Bernie Sanders again tried to discuss Trump in relatively race neutral terms by stating that Trump broke promise to ‘stand with the working people." In so doing, Bernie is attempting to grab Trump's base by trying to validate their reasons for voting for Trump as being based on economic concerns. However, in refusing to call out Trump's racism, Bernie's efforts to grab Trump's base are doomed to fail.
Both Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson noted how the powerful often used racism as a means to oppress whites by giving them a scapegoat. Rather than focus on the rich, powerful and elite, Trump lets them focus on their minorities and women that work side by side with them.
Progressives cannot ignore Trump's sexism and racism in an effort to focus on the economic well-being of the middle class. Instead, you have to call this out to show that Trump is using racism and sexism to oppress the working class and distract them from focusing on how Billionaires like himself benefit from the tax cuts that are paid for with the cuts in benefits to the working class.
Otherwise, when Bernie says that Trump has broke his promise to stand with the working people, working class whites will think, "No, he hasn't because look at how he has deported and cracked down on all of those minorities and immigrants that I compete with." Put another way, by attacking women, LGBT, minorities, immigrants, etc., Trump's supporters may believe that Trump is keeping his promise to stand with working (white) people.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/31/16226488/trump-identity-politics-racism
Over the past month, President Donald Trump has taken a series of steps that, at first glance, may not seem related: He characterized white supremacists who caused chaos and violence in Charlottesville and counterprotesters as equally violent. He pardoned the former Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio. He moved to give police greater access to military weapons. He’s considering revoking a program that shields undocumented immigrants from deportation.
But there’s a common thread linking all of these moves together. “It’s identity politics,” Paul Frymer, director of the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University, told me. “[Trump]’s playing to a group of voters who feel disaffected as whites. It’s not their only identity, but it’s an identity that they identify with and that he’s targeting and exploiting.”
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To understand what Trump is doing, it’s important to first understand how many conservative white Americans feel about the state of US politics. The best description of that comes from sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.
Hochschild spent years with Tea Party members in Louisiana. Out of that experience, she came up with a theory to explain how many of them feel: As they see it, they are all in this line toward a hill with prosperity at the top. But over the past few years, globalization and income stagnation have caused the line to stop moving. And from their perspective, other groups — black and brown Americans, women — are now cutting in the line, because they’re getting new (and more equal) opportunities through various government services, new anti-discrimination laws, and policies like affirmative action. All of that builds resentment.