Donald Trump is a participant as well as a beneficiary of the negative racial climate in the country. He helped to create the hostile racial climate by demeaning the black president. Apparently, he became the Republican nominee for the presidency by casting himself as one who would restore the country to the way it was before we got into this situation with a “dumb” black man as the leader, a man who was willing to harm “our” way of life by letting in all these unworthy immigrants. Let’s take a closer look at how Mr. Trump worked this situation through the racist birther movement.
Birthers are those people who believe—despite all evidence to the contrary—that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii or anywhere else in the United States. Earlier this month the New York Times carried an article which described how in 2011 Trump began to use the birther argument to capitalize on the discomfort many white Americans had with the election of the nation’s first black president. Trump contacted two weird birther conspiracy theorists, each claiming that President Obama was born outside of the United States, which would make him ineligible to be president. The man who Trump talked to several times was so wacky he argued that soybeans caused homosexuality. Trump soon took on this argument and became one of the more vocal birther advocates. In 2011 over one-half (51%) of all Republicans believed that Obama was not born in the United States.
Having decided not to run in 2012 Trump jumped into the 2016 presidential sweepstakes with a somewhat hidden advantage over the other candidates for the Republican nomination. His earlier birther proclamations on all the media had raised his profile and he had the birthers on his side.
According to a national survey this past spring, 59% of Trump’s supporters are birthers—believing that Obama was not born in the United States. Only 23% think that he was born in this country. Nearly two-thirds of Trump’s supporters think President Obama is a Muslim, and only 13% think he is a Christian. In case there is any doubt about racism underpinning much of these attitudes and beliefs, please note that this same survey showed that 20% of Trump’s supporters think that slaves should not have been set free after the Civil War.
Birthers—and others of Trump’s supporters—do not see Mr. Obama as a legitimate president. So Trump’s call to “make America great again” resonates with them. Perhaps they hear Mr. Trump meaning “let’s put white folks in charge again.” I have no doubt that is what Trump is implying.