Trump’s War on Black America Isn’t an Accident—It’s a Strategy

But even if Trump’s goals are not necessarily driven by bigotry, racism is still at play. Trump and his allies have accused Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James of mortgage fraud. He has cast Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as crime-ridden and in need of National Guard troops. His administration constantly states that DEI programs diminish hard work and merit.

That’s not an accident. It’s a strategy. There is ample evidence from research that many rank-and-file Americans believe (or can be primed to believe) that Black people are lazy, unqualified for their jobs, unethical, and dangerous. So even if Trump or his aides don’t have a single ounce of actual bigotry toward Black people, they understand that it’s politically smart for them to first go after Black mayors, cities, and political appointees, setting precedents for later attacks on non-Black people and areas. White conservative voters in particular, but even some moderates and people of color, are more likely to agree with Trump’s arguments if they invoke ideas of Black inferiority and criminality. Trump and his team know that Americans have these biases (sometimes unconsciously) against African Americans, and are exploiting them for political gain.

If Trump’s racism is a tactic to advance authoritarianism and conservatism more than a goal on its own, liberals and Democrats should reconsider some of their approaches in contesting the president. The tendency over the last decade has been for liberals to declare that Trump has said or done something racist without really attacking his core actions or defending his targets. When Trump said during his first term that Representatives Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the other members of “The Squad” should “go back” to the countries they came from, Democratic officials were quite willing to say that was racist. But many center-left Democrats, particularly Nancy Pelosi, not only didn’t really reject but at times reinforced Trump’s broader point: Progressive Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez are too radical to be in Congress.