I’ve been catching these focus groups talking about the election and this question keeps coming up. Is Donald Trump racist? And the absurdity that follows watching people defending him is amazing but, indeed, we as a nation have trouble talking about this stuff. We’ve been conditioned that way.
This might surprise people, especially Americans oddly enough, even though more than enough evidence is lying around. See what I did there? See that? Anyway in case you didn’t know this, in America around the time I was born, it was generally okay for white people to be openly racist. I mean it was never okay, okay, but by societal standards, it was considered normal enough and everybody was running around saying and doing racist stuff left and right.
But then the civil rights movement succeeded in changing minds, and there were equal rights, and women’s rights, and dare I say the wokeness of the 60s, and finally a TV character named Archie Bunker was invented to teach us all how not to speak. And almost immediately the whole country was doing linguistic gymnastics. And we have been doing them ever since, to the point where today you’ll hear a twenty-year-old in a focus group sincerely ask if Donald Trump is actually racist. Let me answer that for them, yes, it’s a resounding yes. But it does deserve an explanation because seriously we need to get past this stuff.
As I said, in the not-too-distant past, it was okay to be openly racist in America. But then in a span of just under a decade, it became taboo. So all of a sudden it was bad to sound racist or to be caught doing racist stuff and now people are jumping through hoops to prove that they’re not racist. In America the worst thing you can be called is racist, It brings up a lot of negative stuff after all. But at the same time, we’re still swimming around in all of the same old soup, and unless you do some work you’re bound to be doing racist, or sexist, or bigoted stuff. It’s almost impossible given the environment not to. That said, it’s easier for younger people because things have relaxed, but the thing about the generational trauma of racism and sexism is that it all finds a way to take another shape. So we have a whole new generation of kids trying to put the racist and sexist genie back in the bottle so to speak. Trying to find ways to reinstitutionalize the sexist and racist norms. I don’t think they’re in the majority by any means, but their out there. There’s the Theo Bros, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro, and all of that kind of stuff going on out there. It’s weird but these ideas always seem to find a way to stick around and it requires constant vigilance.
So back to Trump, and J.D. Vance, because they are a good generational case study. Trump is older and is definitely in the fog of racism. And by that, I mean one of the most insidious aspects of it. Today a lot of people think that being racist is just openly hating someone and using slurs. No, it’s quieter and more deadly than that in its core. It’s the inability to not see someone, to literally not see them as deserving the same dignity that everyone deserves. And this is something people question in these focus groups. They’ll say how do we know what’s in his heart? Well, let me answer that. You can’t use the tools of racist idealogy without being racist. You just can’t. I think in Trump’s case he actually can’t see people as just people, but J.D. Vance? He probably can, not women though, he’s got a real bad case of not accepting women as having the same rights, but other men? Probably, but it doesn’t matter, if you’re willing to wield the language of racism to invoke othering a group of people at their expense then that’s clearly racist.
So yes, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are hands down racists, and they’re assholes. Sounds weird, but one of the lessons of the Archie Bunker character is that not all people exhibiting racist behavior are complete and irrevocable assholes. That’s what Americans fear so much, they think the label is a life sentence. But in many cases, people just grew up in a racist environment and never had the need to explore their actions. Mainly because they were never in a position of power over anyone to do any damage. In All in the Family, there are instances after instances of just that. In times when Archie is confronted with a dilemma and when his beliefs are challenged by having to make a decision that could adversely affect someone. And in every case, he does the right thing. That’s the joke of the show, Archie the guy saying all the wrong stuff would usually do the right thing, while Meathead, the guy saying all the right stuff, would often get it wrong. Look for that the next time you watch those shows.
So that brings me to Tim Walz. He’s an example of how people can deal with bigotry. Tim’s from a small town of 400 people. Statistically that would mean that about 28 people in that town were probably gay when he was growing up. And if you’ve spent time in the city with gay folk in the 90s you’d know that many of them fled small-town America because they weren’t accepted by their community back then. So that’s the soup that Tim Walz likely grew up in. Now, is Tim an outlier? Maybe, but hopefully not, but he is definitely a positive role model in this respect. When Tim was confronted with the idea of being part of an alliance with gay students at his school, where he was a teacher and a coach, he could listen, be thoughtful, and learn. I don’t know if he ever had to overcome any personal bias, but I also doubt he grew up in a town of 400 people and was exposed to a lot of information about gay rights and trans rights. So somewhere down the line, Tim Walz was open to understanding and when confronted with decision after decision he seems to have taken the time to learn and respond with the dignity of the people who would be affected most in mind. That’s something that I think everyone is capable of, but it requires work. Maybe it didn’t for Tim, but probably for most people.
So Is Donald Trump racist? Without a doubt, but America doesn’t need to be.