# 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:** 8
**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, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/141 "2017-09-08T15:56:09Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > That is a non-sequitor. Hookworms used to be endemic in the South with an estimated 40% of southerners having it. Now only rural people in one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states have it. > If you look at a real indicator such as personal income per person in 1960 it was an inflation adjusted $13,114 and now it is $39,231. I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that this afflicts a predominately black county (Lowndes). ---
**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, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/142 "2017-09-08T15:56:09Z")
I think the article itself does dig into the data about class levels and support by race quite a bit. It could do more, but it did a lot in an already very long piece. > [@Bone](#): > > Lots of things can be disqualifiers for people. I have lots as I’m sure others do to. Coates’s mistake is to think that everyone should share this disqualifier (I agree with him that they should), but even moreso, that if they don’t then they must support that disqualifying behavior. I would characterize Coates’ premise as being that the weight that white people assign to the problem of white supremacy is also, partly, a function of white supremacy. Do you think that’s incorrect? ---
**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, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/143 "2017-09-08T15:57:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > **Bone** : out of curiosity, if you did come to agree with Coates about the massive influence of white supremacism, would you start to support Democratic politicians who made opposing white supremacism a big part of their platform (but had standard Democratic positions on guns)? Or would opposing gun control be more important to you than opposing white supremacism? **Bone** – did you miss this question, or would you prefer not to answer? ---
**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, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/144 "2017-09-08T16:06:57Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I would characterize Coates’ premise as being that the weight that white people assign to the problem of white supremacy is also, partly, a function of white supremacy. > > Do you think that’s incorrect? I think that’s correct. I think the magnitude of influence that white supremacy has on the assigned weight is one of the core disagreements, and also difficult to measure. Of course there are lots of racists in the world, but as I said in my first post to the thread, Coates doesn’t seem interested in distinguishing between those that are and those that are not. Rather, he basically says that white people are racist and will bring about armageddon. I really do think his point about other demographic groups in other income levels breaking differently than the WWC would go along way to attacking the idea that it was economic drivers that led to a Trump win. I want to see if I can find some data. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > **Bone** : out of curiosity, if you did come to agree with Coates about the massive influence of white supremacism, would you start to support Democratic politicians who made opposing white supremacism a big part of their platform (but had standard Democratic positions on guns)? Or would opposing gun control be more important to you than opposing white supremacism? It’s kind of a loaded question, so I skipped it. I think there are certain necessary conditions to support a given politician. Opposing gun control is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for me. That there are many other necessary conditions doesn’t speak to the level of importance, and also means I don’t support many politicians. ---
**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, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/145 "2017-09-08T16:14:54Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I think the magnitude of influence that white supremacy has on the assigned weight is one of the core disagreements, and also difficult to measure. Hard to quantify, but easy to see, IMO. > [@Bone](#): > > I really do think his point about other demographic groups in other income levels breaking differently than the WWC would go along way to attacking the idea that it was economic drivers that led to a Trump win. I want to see if I can find some data. For the benefit of people following the thread w/o reading the article, here is what Coates says on this: > [@](#): > > In a study of preelection polling data, the Gallup researchers Jonathan Rothwell and Pablo Diego-Rosell found that “people living in areas with diminished economic opportunity” were “somewhat more likely to support Trump.” But the researchers also found that voters in their study who supported Trump generally had a higher mean household income ($81,898) than those who did not ($77,046). Those who approved of Trump were “less likely to be unemployed and less likely to be employed part-time” than those who did not. They also tended to be from areas that were very white: “The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.” > > An analysis of exit polls conducted during the presidential primaries estimated the median household income of Trump supporters to be about $72,000. But even this lower number is almost double the median household income of African Americans, and $15,000 above the American median. Trump’s white support was not determined by income. According to Edison Research, Trump won whites making less than $50,000 by 20 points, whites making $50,000 to $99,999 by 28 points, and whites making $100,000 or more by 14 points. This shows that Trump assembled a broad white coalition that ran the gamut from Joe the Dishwasher to Joe the Plumber to Joe the Banker. So when white pundits cast the elevation of Trump as the handiwork of an inscrutable white working class, they are being too modest, declining to claim credit for their own economic class. Trump’s dominance among whites across class lines is of a piece with his larger dominance across nearly every white demographic. Trump won white women (+9) and white men (+31). He won white people with college degrees (+3) and white people without them (+37). He won whites ages 18–29 (+4), 30–44 (+17), 45–64 (+28), and 65 and older (+19). Trump won whites in midwestern Illinois (+11), whites in mid-Atlantic New Jersey (+12), and whites in the Sun Belt’s New Mexico (+5). In no state that Edison polled did Trump’s white support dip below 40 percent. > > . . . > > That is likely because any empirical evaluation of the relationship between Trump and the white working class would reveal that one adjective in that phrase is doing more work than the other. In 2016, Trump enjoyed majority or plurality support among every economic branch of whites. It is true that his strongest support among whites came from those making $50,000 to $99,999. This would be something more than working-class in many nonwhite neighborhoods, but even if one accepts that branch as the working class, the difference between how various groups in this income bracket voted is revealing. Sixty-one percent of whites in this “working class” supported Trump. Only 24 percent of Hispanics and 11 percent of blacks did. Indeed, the plurality of all voters making less than $100,000 and the majority making less than $50,000 voted for the Democratic candidate. So when Packer laments the fact that “Democrats can no longer really claim to be the party of working people—not white ones, anyway,” he commits a kind of category error. The real problem is that Democrats aren’t the party of white people—working or otherwise. White workers are not divided by the fact of labor from other white demographics; they are divided from all other laborers by the fact of their whiteness. ---
**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, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/146 "2017-09-08T16:16:56Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > All these “unsupported” and “based on nothing” show you haven’t read the article. You’re just responding to clips as if they must stand on their own apart from the other paragraphs of evidence. You should consider reading it. I have read it. The only evidence that Donald Trump is a racist is " He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers." The fought to keep blacks out of his buildings is a reference to a suit in the early 70s against his father’s company. That suit was settled with no finding of guilt by them agreeing to provide a list of vacancies to the New York Urban League. The Central Park five were charged with gang rape, attempted murder, and numerous assault charges. Several of them confessed. They were later only exonerated of the rape but were definitely guilty of numerous assaults. It seems odd that wanting the death penalty for people convicted of gang rape and attempted murder is a sign of white supremacy. The quotes about laziness and hating blacks counting his money come second hand from a disgruntled employee. Trump has vehemently denied ever saying anything like this. George W Bush had his intelligence questioned and his college transcripts were leaked to the press. Other politicians who have had their intelligence questioned were Reagan, Palin, Biden, Carson, Rubio. It is just a part of politics. If one were really uncharitable and believed the worst about all of these things you could maybe claim that Trump is a closet racist. Yet the claim is that Trump has overt and freely claimed racism. There is nothing at all about overt and freely claimed racist, not even an attempt to ever quote Trump freely claiming racism. Trump has been a public figure for almost 40 years yet Coates has not one quote of him freely claiming racism. Because it was a lie. ---
**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, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/147 "2017-09-08T16:20:35Z")
I’m glad you’re prepared to engage with the arguments raised in the article instead of claiming there were no arguments. > [@puddleglum](#): > > The Central Park five were charged with gang rape, attempted murder, and numerous assault charges. Several of them confessed. They were later only exonerated of the rape but were definitely guilty of numerous assaults. It seems odd that wanting the death penalty for people convicted of gang rape and attempted murder is a sign of white supremacy. No, they were not “definitely guilty of numerous assaults.” But putting that aside, Trump continues to maintain his position even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence. ---
**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, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/148 "2017-09-08T16:24:29Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > For the benefit of people following the thread w/o reading the article, here is what Coates says on this: Yes, I read this part and that’s what I think is most interesting. I think to make the point more clearly, about how Trump is different, is WHITE rather than white, a comparison to other candidates among the same demographic groups needs to be made. I also have to remember that when Coates scoffs at 50K-99K as working class, it’s more of a national view since 50K here is like…basically destitute. ---
**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, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/149 "2017-09-08T16:24:54Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The fastest growing and economically vibrant part of the South\* is\* the black community there. We are seeing the slow return of the children and grandchildren of the people who fled the terrorism and economic piracy of the first half of the twentieth century. They are returning in large part because of the work done by leaders who have identified and destroyed the legacies of white supremacy. Coates “and his ilk” absolutely want that to continue. As they should. > > The problems you identify are caused in substantial part by white supremacy. Certain white people have been blaming black people for the results of white supremacy for over a century. It has never stopped, as your posts evidence. According to Coates the legacies of white supremacy have not been destroyed. They are out in the open. Yet as you say black people are returning to the South in great numbers and prospering despite it being the part of the country that supported Trump the most. You can’t have it both ways, either white supremacy is and all encompassing powerful force that it is able to hold blacks down in every part of the country, or the South has a growing, vibrant, and prospering black community. If the problems are caused by white supremacy then why do non white minorities not have the same problems? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/150 "2017-09-08T16:27:37Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I think Coates’s strongest argument is one he didn’t make explicitly in his article, but describes in the interview when responding to the idea that Trump won primarily because of the white working class and economic issues, rather than race. He says: > > > [@](#): > > > > Well, you know, it’s certainly true that the white working class feels that way. But anybody who wants to make a class-based argument must explain why the black working class, the Latino working class, didn’t break the same way. They are just as afflicted by forces of globalization and economic change, deindustrialization, et cetera. And yet they didn’t break to Trump > > It would have been great to illustrate this point with data in his article. The data doesn’t back him up. Whites favored Trump +21 while in 2012 they favored Romney by +20. Trump actually did better amongst black and hispanic voters (-87 and -44 to -80 and -36) than Romney did. > **[Behind Trump’s victory: Divisions by race, gender, education](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/)** > > Donald Trump's win followed a campaign that revealed deep divisions that were as wide and in some cases wider than in previous elections. There really wasn’t that big of a change in voting patterns from 2012 to 2016. The absolute number of WWC voters changing from Democrat to Republican isn’t that large. It was just big enough to flip key states when combined with a lower turnout of voters who had voted for Obama. ---
**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, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/151 "2017-09-08T16:29:18Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that this afflicts a predominately black county (Lowndes). It is not. Black people are highly concentrated along the southern Mississippi river because cotton needs lots of water and hot weather to grow best. Hookworms also spread best in wet soil and hot weather. Are you trying to imply that hookworms are racist? ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/152 "2017-09-08T16:32:13Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The fought to keep blacks out of his buildings is a reference to a suit in the early 70s against his father’s company. That suit was settled with no finding of guilt by them agreeing to provide a list of vacancies to the New York Urban League. That’s nowhere near a complete summary of the [consent decree](https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/FH-NY-0024-0034.pdf). They agreed to a long list of other actions they were required to take to address the issues. ---
**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, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/153 "2017-09-08T16:32:23Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I’m glad you’re prepared to engage with the arguments raised in the article instead of claiming there were no arguments. > > No, they were not “definitely guilty of numerous assaults.” But putting that aside, Trump continues to maintain his position even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence. Since you read it, I’m sure you can provide the examples he uses to back up his assertion of overt and freely claimed racism. About the case according to Wikipedia “The teenagers attacked and beat people as they moved south, on the park’s East Drive and the 97th Street Transverse, between 9 pm and 10 pm.[10] Between 102nd and 105th Streets they attacked several bicyclists, hurled rocks at a cab, and attacked a man who was walking, whom they knocked to the ground, assaulted, robbed, and left unconscious.[10][29] A schoolteacher out for a run was severely beaten and kicked between 9:40 and 9:50.[10] Then, at the 97th Street Transverse at the northwest end of the Central Park Reservoir running track, at about 10 pm, they attacked another jogger, hitting him in the back of the head with a pipe and stick.[10][31] They pummeled two men into unconsciousness, hitting them with a metal pipe, stones, and punches, and kicking them in the head.[29][35] A police officer testified that one male jogger, who said he had been jumped by four or five black youths, was bleeding so badly he “looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood”.[41] All five confessed to a number of the attacks committed in the park that night, and implicated one or more of the others” ---
**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, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/154 "2017-09-08T16:37:18Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > According to Coates the legacies of white supremacy have not been destroyed. That’s right. Some have. Some haven’t. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Yet as you say black people are returning to the South in great numbers and prospering despite it being the part of the country that supported Trump the most. You can’t have it both ways, either white supremacy is and all encompassing powerful force that it is able to hold blacks down in every part of the country, or the South has a growing, vibrant, and prospering black community. No, there is no contradiction there. > [@puddleglum](#): > > If the problems are caused by white supremacy then why do non white minorities not have the same problems? Different groups are different, and have different relationships to white supremacy. The history of South Asians in this country is different from Cubans which is different from Guatemalans which is different from the descendents of slaves. White supremacy had the greatest impact on the descendents of slaves, whose ancestors were brought here and held in bondage, their families destroyed and tortured for trying to learn to read, and then targeted for terrorism and piracy in ways not comparable to any other group save perhaps the Native Americans, ending within living memory. ---
**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, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/155 "2017-09-08T16:41:18Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I also have to remember that when Coates scoffs at 50K-99K as working class, it’s more of a national view since 50K here is like…basically destitute. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/156 "2017-09-08T16:43:39Z")
So Trump was elected in 2016 because of white backlash against Obama, who wasn’t running. But in 2012, Trump couldn’t generate enough interest even to officially run. So presumably the white backlash only works when a black person isn’t running. Regards, Shodan ---
**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, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/157 "2017-09-08T16:54:41Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > That’s right. Some have. Some haven’t. > > No, there is no contradiction there. > > Different groups are different, and have different relationships to white supremacy. The history of South Asians in this country is different from Cubans which is different from Guatemalans which is different from the descendents of slaves. > > White supremacy had the greatest impact on the descendents of slaves, whose ancestors were brought here and held in bondage, their families destroyed and tortured for trying to learn to read, and then targeted for terrorism and piracy in ways not comparable to any other group save perhaps the Native Americans, ending within living memory. Obviously different groups have different histories. But Coates is not talking about the history of white supremacy but rather the current amount of white supremacy. Is white supremacy hurting blacks today or did it hurt them so bad in the past that they are now unable to recover. If the problem is the current white supremacy than the solutions are very different than if the problem was the white supremacy of the past. You seem to be saying that there is something in the South Asians history that allows them to find ways to overcome the current white supremacy. If this is true why not advise blacks to copy those ways so they can likewise overcome white supremacy? ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/158 "2017-09-08T16:55:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So Trump was elected in 2016 because of white backlash against Obama, who wasn’t running. But in 2012, Trump couldn’t generate enough interest even to officially run. So presumably the white backlash only works when a black person isn’t running. Yes, because the claim being made was that racism is the only variable that ever matters in elections. Your demonstration of the existence that other factors exist that might also matter in an election outcome is thus a perfect refutation of the thesis in question, and not just a statement of the obvious that fails to address the point. ---
**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, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/159 "2017-09-08T16:55:40Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > So Trump was elected in 2016 because of white backlash against Obama, who wasn’t running. But in 2012, Trump couldn’t generate enough interest even to officially run. So presumably the white backlash only works when a black person isn’t running. > > Regards, > Shodan Hmmm, no, I think you have it all confused. All of what you said there is wrong. ---
**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, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725/160 "2017-09-08T16:57:24Z")
For an opposite perspective, this blog post by Scott Alexander is great. And unlike Coates’ piece, its actually well written. [Against Murderism](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/21/against-murderism/). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-the-first-white-president-article-in-the-atlantic-by-ta-nehisi-coates/795725.md?page=9)