White Supremacist America: Trump and the “Return” of Right-Wing Hate Culture

Many of my friends from college and fellow academics in the last year are focusing their anxieties on the Donald Trump campaign. A common frustration voiced among intellectuals is the disbelief that a candidate as bigoted, pig-headed, and willfully ignorant as “the Donald” could be running neck and neck with a seasoned political veteran like Hillary Clinton. This piece is not about Hillary Clinton, however. Rather, it’s about promoting a much needed discussion of what Trump’s rise really tells us. I don’t believe we have a “Donald Trump” problem in this country. The problem is much worse than that. More ominously, we have an American public problem that cuts to the very core of the quality of our democracy. Demagogues rise to power on the backs of workers, citizens, and your average “Joe” or “Jane.” They do not owe their success to their actions alone.

If Donald Trump is enjoying electoral success, it’s because the public – passively or actively – allowed it to happen. While Pew Research Center surveys do find considerable ignorance among Trump supporters – the most commonly cited reasons for supporting him have nothing to do with policy, but everything to do with personality characteristics – this trend was observed across all the front-runners, including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Ted Cruz supporters. What makes Trump’s case more disturbing than the norm of across-the-board voter ignorance is that such a large contingent of…

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