# Donald Trump: The First White President \[article in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725 "2017-09-07T13:01:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/181 "2017-09-08T19:56:33Z")
Trump said some racist things and probably holds some racist opinions but I am skeptical that racism is the dominant force behind his politics. Rather it is a bizarre combination of nationalism and egotism: the US is getting screwed by other countries and only he, the great dealmaker, can set it right. He has been spouting this for literally 30 years with remarkably consistency. Incidentally this is an interesting [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iuj7VMB48o)where Trump talks about Obama in 2008. Does he sound like someone who is enraged at a black man becoming President? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/182 "2017-09-08T19:58:25Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The David Duke argument is poorly reasoned, IMO. Jill Stein also got some single digit support. Does that mean people don’t support environmentalism? What that means is that for all of her supporters, the environment was the most important thing. That it came before all other considerations. They were the single issue voters. The people that voted for DD are the same. White supremacism is the most important thing. They are single issue voters. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/183 "2017-09-08T20:22:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The article is full of shit. > > Sure, there are white racists. I really dont think there are that many, but that’s besides the point. > > And they likely voted for Trump. > > Just like they voted for Romney, and McCain, and Dole and GW Bush. But they lost anyway. > > The white racist vote didnt decide this election. > > **What did is the blue collar workers voting for Trump as he gave them Hope that they might get back their lost manufacturing jobs- or keep the one they had**. Now THAT is bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/184 "2017-09-08T20:32:42Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > These two things aren’t as distinct as you suggest, and neither are the solutions. > > A good example is neighborhood segregation. It is pretty clear that neighborhood segregation is largely a function of government policies in place from the 1920s through the 1970s. Most of those policies have been dismantled. But they have left a mark. Beyond the simple momentum of people wanting to remain close to their families and friends–which is not insignificant–there is also the ability to have developed inter-generational wealth through home ownership, there is the impact of schools and therefore on social mobility, and much else besides. Layered on top of that is a whole network of current policies that affect people differently based on where they live. The water crisis in Flint would be a good example. And there is the way that residential segregation maintains white supremacy, among other ways by preventing diverse racial experiences for black and white children. > > Is that white supremacy current or past? Does the remedy really depend on your answer? > > White supremacy isn’t some uniform force affecting all nonwhite people equally. Of course the remedy depends on the answer. Lets say arguendo, that your story of residential segregation is correct. How should we remedy the situation, should we fight white supremacy or should we attempt to get black people to buy more houses in white neighborhoods? If the problem is current white supremacy we fight that and when we win the problem goes away. If the problem is past white supremacy and we fight current white supremacy and it goes away the problem stays the same. If you read the article I linked to about anti-murderism that is the point it makes. The problem with seeing racism as an all powerful cause is that it simplifies complex situations and gives everything one solution. If you are familiar with Coates’ oeuvre, that is his stock in trade. Why do black women feel insecure about their hair? white supremacy Why do taxi drivers not want to pick him up?white supremacy Why did a white lady bump his son coming off an escalator?white supremacy Why did his great grandmother beat his grandmother? white supremacy Why did his fellow black kids think he was a nerd for reading comic books? white supremacy Why did a black cop mistake his his friend for a drug dealer which caused a confrontation that led to his friend being shot? white supremacy Why did a white guy beat a white lady in a presidential contest? white supremacy As a republican I would be thrilled if the Democrats took his advice and wrote off all white people who think differently than Coates as irredeemable racists but as an american I want to see problems solved and blaming all of them on some phantom is not going to help. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/185 "2017-09-08T20:34:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Of course the remedy depends on the answer. Lets say arguendo, that your story of residential segregation is correct. How should we remedy the situation, should we fight white supremacy or should we attempt to get black people to buy more houses in white neighborhoods? If the problem is current white supremacy we fight that and when we win the problem goes away. If the problem is past white supremacy and we fight current white supremacy and it goes away the problem stays the same. > If you read the article I linked to about anti-murderism that is the point it makes. The problem with seeing racism as an all powerful cause is that it simplifies complex situations and gives everything one solution. > If you are familiar with Coates’ oeuvre, that is his stock in trade. Why do black women feel insecure about their hair? white supremacy > Why do taxi drivers not want to pick him up?white supremacy > Why did a white lady bump his son coming off an escalator?white supremacy > Why did his great grandmother beat his grandmother? white supremacy > Why did his fellow black kids think he was a nerd for reading comic books? white supremacy > Why did a black cop mistake his his friend for a drug dealer which caused a confrontation that led to his friend being shot? white supremacy > Why did a white guy beat a white lady in a presidential contest? white supremacy > > As a republican I would be thrilled if the Democrats took his advice and wrote off all white people who think differently then as irredeemable racists but as an american I want to see problems solved and blaming all of them on some phantom is not going to help. As far as I can tell, this is a response to some fantasy version of Coates (and Coates’ arguments), with little to do with the real-world versions. Same goes for the “anti-murderism” link – I couldn’t tell what that was responding to. It wasn’t Coates’ article or his arguments. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/186 "2017-09-08T20:40:28Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > What that means is that for all of her supporters, the environment was the most important thing. That it came before all other considerations. They were the single issue voters. > > The people that voted for DD are the same. White supremacism is the most important thing. They are single issue voters. Duke got 3% in what twitter claims is the most racist state in the country, where he has been running for office for 30 years. If you extrapolate to the country the white supremacist vote might be 1-2% of the electorate. That is why any analysis that says the election was about white supremacy makes as much since as claiming it was all about hardcore environmentalism and its impossible to understand Hillary Clinton’s voters without understanding the Earth Liberation Front. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/187 "2017-09-08T20:46:07Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Of course the remedy depends on the answer. Lets say arguendo, that your story of residential segregation is correct. How should we remedy the situation, should we fight white supremacy or should we attempt to get black people to buy more houses in white neighborhoods? If the problem is current white supremacy we fight that and when we win the problem goes away. If the problem is past white supremacy and we fight current white supremacy and it goes away the problem stays the same. > If you read the article I linked to about anti-murderism that is the point it makes. The problem with seeing racism as an all powerful cause is that it simplifies complex situations and gives everything one solution. That you think that the solution to racism is simple is part of the problem. It is not simplifying complex problems into simple solutions, it is analyzing complex problems and identifying that in many of them, some level of past or present racism has shaped the problem that needs to be tackled. Is dealing with white supremacism the only thing that needs to be done to address these problems? No, but it is part of what is necessary to address if we are going to solve them. It is a simplification of a complex problem to try to claim that racism has no part in these issues. > [@](#): > > If you are familiar with Coates’ oeuvre, that is his stock in trade. Why do black women feel insecure about their hair? white supremacy > Why do taxi drivers not want to pick him up?white supremacy > Why did a white lady bump his son coming off an escalator?white supremacy > Why did his great grandmother beat his grandmother? white supremacy > Why did his fellow black kids think he was a nerd for reading comic books? white supremacy > Why did a black cop mistake his his friend for a drug dealer which caused a confrontation that led to his friend being shot? white supremacy > Why did a white guy beat a white lady in a presidential contest? white supremacy That is a gross simplification of his thesis. A simplification to the point of being pretty close to diametrically opposite to his thesis. If that is what you think he is saying, then no wonder you disagree, because that is not even close. He shows that in these cases, when a simple observation may not see that there is racism inherent in the reason behind them, that there is some level of racial bias that makes those things more likely to happen. He never claims that they are caused entirely by racism, in fact, he points out a few times very specifically that these things are not caused entirely by racism. That you think that he claims that these are caused solely by racism means that you have not paid attention to what he was saying, not at all, but have instead come up with your own flawed interpretation with which to disagree. > [@](#): > > As a republican I would be thrilled if the Democrats took his advice and wrote off all white people who think differently than Coates as irredeemable racists but as an american I want to see problems solved and blaming all of them on some phantom is not going to help. As that is not his advice, it would be foolish for anyone to take the advice that you very incorrectly claim he gives. But the advice that he actually gives, that there is nuance, there is complexity, and that there are many systemic problems that can be traced to being affected by not just past, but current racism, and that that should be realized and acknowledged by policy makers, and those who vote for policy makers would in fact make america a better place. He is not blaming them on a phantom, you are arguing against a phantom of your own creation. In other words, it is you that is simplifying the problem, not him. You can argue over whether or not his argument is correct, but try to get at least a cursory grasp of what it is first. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/188 "2017-09-08T20:46:18Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > As far as I can tell, this is a response to some fantasy version of Coates (and Coates’ arguments), with little to do with the real-world versions. Same goes for the “anti-murderism” link – I couldn’t tell what that was responding to. It wasn’t Coates’ article or his arguments. It was responding to Coates’ arguments. I used to be a subscriber to the Atlantic where he writes and all of those scenarios I listed are problems he has written about and he claims they are all caused by white supremacy. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/189 "2017-09-08T20:53:12Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > It was responding to Coates’ arguments. I used to be a subscriber to the Atlantic where he writes and all of those scenarios I listed are problems he has written about and he claims they are all caused by white supremacy. I’ve never seen him claim that white supremacy is the sole explanation for any of these phenomena, nor that there’s any simple or easy solution for white supremacism or anything related to racism. These are extremely complex issues, and require a lot of complexity and nuance just to talk about, much less to address and try to solve. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/190 "2017-09-08T20:53:20Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Duke got 3% in what twitter claims is the most racist state in the country, where he has been running for office for 30 years. If you extrapolate to the country the white supremacist vote might be 1-2% of the electorate. That is why any analysis that says the election was about white supremacy makes as much since as claiming it was all about hardcore environmentalism and its impossible to understand Hillary Clinton’s voters without understanding the Earth Liberation Front. That is 3% of people who favored him over every other candidate, and the only thing that DD was running on was white supremacism. That means that 3% find maintaining racism to be the single most important issue to them. That’s not a cap, that’s a bottom. That there are another some percentage of people who put racism as priority #2, and vote for a somewhat less racist candidate that actually can achieve political goals does not mean that those people do not find racism to be important, just not as important as schools and bridges. That 3% means that there are 3% of voters who would like to see black people in this country stripped of their civil rights, and removed from the soil as freemen one way or another. There are more white supremacists that do not go quite so far, and simply wish for blacks to “know their place”. Put it this way, did any of DD’s voters vote for Clinton? No, I don’t think so. Did DD endorses Clinton? No, he endorsed Trump. And that’s really what it comes down to. Which candidate was endorsed by the white supremacists? Trump was. Trump did not distance himself from that endorsement, he was courting that vote. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/191 "2017-09-08T21:07:03Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > That you think that the solution to racism is simple is part of the problem. > > It is not simplifying complex problems into simple solutions, it is analyzing complex problems and identifying that in many of them, some level of past or present racism has shaped the problem that needs to be tackled. Is dealing with white supremacism the only thing that needs to be done to address these problems? No, but it is part of what is necessary to address if we are going to solve them. > > It is a simplification of a complex problem to try to claim that racism has no part in these issues. > > That is a gross simplification of his thesis. A simplification to the point of being pretty close to diametrically opposite to his thesis. If that is what you think he is saying, then no wonder you disagree, because that is not even close. > > He shows that in these cases, when a simple observation may not see that there is racism inherent in the reason behind them, that there is some level of racial bias that makes those things more likely to happen. > > He never claims that they are caused entirely by racism, in fact, he points out a few times very specifically that these things are not caused entirely by racism. That you think that he claims that these are caused solely by racism means that you have not paid attention to what he was saying, not at all, but have instead come up with your own flawed interpretation with which to disagree. > > As that is not his advice, it would be foolish for anyone to take the advice that you very incorrectly claim he gives. But the advice that he actually gives, that there is nuance, there is complexity, and that there are many systemic problems that can be traced to being affected by not just past, but current racism, and that that should be realized and acknowledged by policy makers, and those who vote for policy makers would in fact make america a better place. He is not blaming them on a phantom, you are arguing against a phantom of your own creation. > > In other words, it is you that is simplifying the problem, not him. You can argue over whether or not his argument is correct, but try to get at least a cursory grasp of what it is first. The solution to racism is simple. People need to stop being racist. If we do that problems that are caused by racism will vanish. If the problem is not racism but another problem that is only subtly connected to racism then the focus on racism will not help. Focusing on racism will only poison the well and make a solution less likely. An example is the Eric Garner case. He was the black man who was killed during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes. Some people said that he was killed because he was black, others say that it was because he resisted arrest. Very few people said he was killed because he was placed in a position after where his size and poor health made it so he couldn’t breathe and he could have been saved by being moved to a sitting position. It could have been a great opportunity for police across the country to make sure they are all trained in safe positions for arrested people, instead it was just another example of how racist America hates black bodies and the police are the modern day paddy rollers. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/192 "2017-09-08T21:09:40Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The solution to racism is simple. People need to stop being racist. If we do that problems that are caused by racism will vanish. If the problem is not racism but another problem that is only subtly connected to racism then the focus on racism will not help. Focusing on racism will only poison the well and make a solution less likely. > An example is the Eric Garner case. He was the black man who was killed during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes. Some people said that he was killed because he was black, others say that it was because he resisted arrest. Very few people said he was killed because he was placed in a position after where his size and poor health made it so he couldn’t breathe and he could have been saved by being moved to a sitting position. It could have been a great opportunity for police across the country to make sure they are all trained in safe positions for arrested people, instead it was just another example of how racist America hates black bodies and the police are the modern day paddy rollers. The fact that police throughout the country didn’t take this opportunity could be related to the influence of white supremacism in our society – the fact (as I see it, anyway) that unjust deaths of black men are not seen as horrors in our society at large, but rather as mundane details or even as appropriate events. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/193 "2017-09-08T21:11:36Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > That is 3% of people who favored him over every other candidate, and the only thing that DD was running on was white supremacism. That means that 3% find maintaining racism to be the single most important issue to them. > > That’s not a cap, that’s a bottom. That there are another some percentage of people who put racism as priority #2, and vote for a somewhat less racist candidate that actually can achieve political goals does not mean that those people do not find racism to be important, just not as important as schools and bridges. > > That 3% means that there are 3% of voters who would like to see black people in this country stripped of their civil rights, and removed from the soil as freemen one way or another. There are more white supremacists that do not go quite so far, and simply wish for blacks to “know their place”. > > Put it this way, did any of DD’s voters vote for Clinton? No, I don’t think so. Did DD endorses Clinton? No, he endorsed Trump. > > And that’s really what it comes down to. Which candidate was endorsed by the white supremacists? Trump was. Trump did not distance himself from that endorsement, he was courting that vote. You don’t know how many of Duke’s voters voted for Hillary. Maybe racists are also environmentalists or pro-abortion. Who knows. It is a lie that Trump did not distance himself from the endorsement. From CNN: “David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK,” Trump added. “Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/194 "2017-09-08T21:13:02Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > You don’t know how many of Duke’s voters voted for Hillary. Maybe racists are also environmentalists or pro-abortion. Who knows. > It is a lie that Trump did not distance himself from the endorsement. From CNN: “David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years,” Trump said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” > > “I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK,” Trump added. “Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.” Trump said way, way worse things about Clinton, Obama, and many other non white-supremacists. Why didn’t he bring himself to use the same, or worse, extremely negative language about such a horrible and harmful person as David Duke? And before he said that about Duke, why did he pretend not to know who Duke was? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/195 "2017-09-08T21:29:53Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > You don’t know how many of Duke’s voters voted for Hillary. Maybe racists are also environmentalists or pro-abortion. Who knows. Racists and gun nuts are single issue voters. I have a gunnut friend, who is pro-abortion, and pro-environment. Still votes 100% totally GOP , uses terms like “Killary”, calls her a criminal, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/196 "2017-09-08T21:32:54Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > At a guess, the mean Trump supporter with an income 50K-99K is living somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper than the US average. This article is pretty long, but makes the argument that[education level was a better predictor of votes.](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/) After looking a bit, there isn’t a concise place that has teh voting demographic broken down by income and race, combined. Most do either income, or race, but not both together and what I’m trying to tease out is the 2012 vs. 2016 results. Because if Coates’s argument is correct, then there should be an impact as Trump was WHITE, rather than just white. Silver looks at county level data, and tries to isolate education level comparing how Trump did, how Clinton did, and how Clinton did compared to how Obama did. > [@](#): > > Clinton lost ground relative to Obama in 47 of the 50 counties [50K people or more, with lowest percent of population completing at least a bachelors degree] — she did an average of 11 percentage points worse, in fact. These are really the places that won Donald Trump the presidency, especially given that a fair number of them are in swing states such as Ohio and North Carolina. He improved on Mitt Romney’s margin by more than 30 points (!) in Ashtabula County, Ohio, for example, an industrial county along Lake Erie that hadn’t voted Republican since 1984. > > And this is also a reasonably diverse list of counties. While some of them are poor, a few others — such as Bullitt County, Kentucky, and Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana — have average incomes. There’s also some racial diversity on the list: Starr County, Texas, is 96 percent Hispanic, for example, and Clinton underperformed Obama there (although she still won it by a large margin). Edgecombe County, North Carolina, is 57 percent black and saw a shift toward Trump. > > How do we know that education levels drove changes in support — as opposed to income levels, for example? It’s tricky because there’s a fairly strong correlation between income and education.4 Nonetheless, with the whole country to pick from, we can find some places where education levels are high but incomes are average or below average. If education is the key driver of changes in the electorate, we’d expect Clinton to hold steady or gain in these counties. If income matters more, we might see her numbers decline. When looking at counties with lower education, but also majority non-white, he says this: > [@](#): > > By contrast, Clinton struggled (relatively speaking) in majority-minority communities with lower education levels. Among the 19 majority-minority countries where 15 percent or less of the population has a bachelor’s degree, she won by an average of only 7 percentage points, less than Obama’s 10-point average margin of victory in 2012. We need to be slightly careful here because of the potential ecological fallacy — it’s not clear if minority voters shifted away from Clinton in these counties or if the white voters who live there did. Still, Trump probably gained overall among Latino and black voters compared to Romney, and it’s worth investigating divisions within those communities instead of treating their votes as monolithic. I believe doing the analysis here is tough and there’s probably lots of competing explanations. Silver presents education level as a driving factor. The data does seem to paint that picture. Coates says instead it’s white supremacy, or maybe, in addition to. Silver isn’t doing an historical analysis on how past and current racist practices impact the results, but at the same time Coates isn’t supporting his thesis with a lot of good data. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/197 "2017-09-08T22:05:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The article is full of shit. > > Sure, there are white racists. I really dont think there are that many, but that’s besides the point. > > And they likely voted for Trump. > > Just like they voted for Romney, and McCain, and Dole and GW Bush. But they lost anyway. > > The white racist vote didnt decide this election. > > What did is the blue collar workers voting for Trump as he gave them Hope that they might get back their lost manufacturing jobs- or keep the one they had. I don’t want to delve into the question what defines racism right now, but let’s just say this is not really correct. A lot of white people with non-liberal views on race voted for Obama twice, and for Kerry, and for Clinton the first time, and so forth. Among people who voted for Obama in 2012, about a third supported a ban on Muslim immigration, and about a third though African Americans are, on the whole, genetically predisposed to lower IQ than white people, and many of these people switched to trump last year. Views about race and ethnicity weren’t politically polarized (between, say, 1970 and 2012) as they became in 2016. There’s no serious doubt that Trump won the election because of white identity politics. The more interesting questions to me are whether white identity politics is always a bad thing, whether it all boils down to questions of ‘supremacy’ and oppressing African Americans, and so forth. I would disagree with most liberals on those questions, though I’d certainly agree that _Trump himself_ embodies a noxious and dangerous kind of white identity politics. But I don’t think there can be a serious question that Trump won because of white identity politics. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/198 "2017-09-08T22:10:16Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I don’t want to delve into the question what defines racism right now, but let’s just say this is not really correct. A lot of white people with non-liberal views on race voted for Obama twice, and for Kerry, and for Clinton the first time, and so forth. Among people who voted for Obama in 2012, about a third supported a ban on Muslim immigration, and about a third though African Americans are, on the whole, genetically predisposed to lower IQ than white people, and many of these people switched to trump last year. Views about race and ethnicity weren’t politically polarized (between, say, 1970 and 2012) as they became in 2016. > > There’s no serious doubt that Trump won the election because of white identity politics. …But I don’t think there can be a serious question that Trump won because of white identity politics. You can be scared of Muslim terrorists without being a racist. I’d like to see a cite on: "_and about a third though African Americans are, on the whole, genetically predisposed to lower IQ than white people,"_ And yes indeed, there _is_ serious doubt. Just you saying there isn’t doesn’t make it so. “\*Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” \* Those voters dont vote Democrat anyway. (well, not anymore). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/199 "2017-09-08T22:52:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > You can be scared of Muslim terrorists without being a racist. > > I’d like to see a cite on: "_and about a third though African Americans are, on the whole, genetically predisposed to lower IQ than white people,"_ > > And yes indeed, there _is_ serious doubt. Just you saying there isn’t doesn’t make it so. “\*Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” > \* > Those voters dont vote Democrat anyway. (well, not anymore). I explicitly didn’t say “racist”, I said “didn’t share liberal ideas about race”. I think most of the concern over Muslim immigration boils down to ethnic, racial, cultural and religious issues, not concerns about safety. Again, that’s not at all meant as a criticism: I entirely sympathize with the desire of people to live in a country inhabited by people who share a certain culture, physical appearance, genetic heritage, religion, language, etc. Most people are, by nature, tribal. (America is somewhat unusual in that it was deliberately conceived as a country in civic rather than ethnic terms, and I think we should put in some more effort to see if we can make that work, but I’m not at all denying the costs of that approach). I think we should be honest about what the real issues around immigration are though, and not make up fictions about Muslim terrorists and Mexican rapists. (There are countries which really do have a problem with particular ethnic minority communities having high sex crime rates, like England. America isn’t really one of them). ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/200 "2017-09-08T23:19:00Z")
Bone: You might appreciate this one: Donald Trump’s Strongest Supporters: A Certain Kind of Democrat > **[Donald Trump’s Strongest Supporters: A Certain Kind of Democrat (Published 2015)](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/upshot/donald-trumps-strongest-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html)** > > In a survey, he also excels among low-turnout voters and among the less affluent and the less educated, so the question is: Will they show up to vote? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=11)