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Donald Trump's Influence On Race

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Recent political developments that have penetrated Western European and American politics seem to have manifested themselves in permutations inspired by everything from flagrant fascist ideology to altered forms of leftist liberalism. Donald Trump’s win provides a pertinent example of such worrisome political developments. Yet, although his win involved other factors besides his campaign’s concentration on the white middle class, the ubiquity of more extreme politics in the West could signal impending political tail risk. Trump’s win could have been a relatively benign cyclical political event or an inflection point in world politics. The middle-class appeared to be the critical point of electorate influence in multiple elections during 2017 …show more content…

Trump’s platform echoed James Baldwin’s assertion that “In the South an essential element in the identity of each race was they weren’t the other” (A Rap on Race, excerpt 9). Trump’s brand of populism attracted his discontented base of white middle-class voters who could, partly, at least, be defined by what they were not, namely immigrants and people of color. Thus, Trump lambasted immigrants and minorities to appeal to his base. As Ho points out, “economic populism mistakenly organizes around the fake culprit of reverse discrimination and special rights” (Ho 2018, 150). Populist sentiment united the Trump base by making them feel they had not had bad luck but had been ‘cheated’ out of opportunities. According to Ho, this proves problematic because many of Trump’s voters who believed other groups of people had an easier time getting hired are more likely to be racist towards these groups. As antagonisms between people of different identities and backgrounds increases, populism will continue to …show more content…

Ho provides the example of the American housing market to prove that even markets that are considered “neutral” like the housing market actually favor some market participants (white men in particular) over others (people of color). She calls markets “elite white racial fraternities,” highlighting the extent to which opportunities are limited to certain groups of people (Ho 2018, 150). Ho posits that housing opportunities heavily favored white men because of “massive federal subsidies” and loans that were “offered only to white men across class backgrounds” effectively “created a majority middle-class founded in whiteness” (Ho 2018, 149). Systemic racism throughout private and public sectors have excluded certain groups from the middle-class, and now certain members of the middle-class have less social mobility. Such systemic racism is not only difficult to fix but also keeps certain groups down and propagates wealth inequality. If, for example, an African-American cannot get a loan to buy a home, he or she has a lower chance of building wealth compared to a white person who could get a loan. As Ho elucidates, “cultural norms… ensured that the “economic” principle of supply and demand in housing was in fact centrally structured by race” (149). Thus, wealth inequality is not only growing between the richest and the poorest but among white people and people of color. As wealth

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