Keller: Donald Trump’s victory is about class, not race. And that’s a good thing

2024/11/13 Leave a comment

I would argue both but more discussion about class and less about identity is positive:

…A multiracial society is a lot more difficult to sustain if politics is fought over immutable characteristics, with skin colour or ethnicity dictating how I vote, and which party courts or targets me. Democrats have long accused the MAGA movement of being white supremacy on steroids, but more and more blue-collar voters of all races, particularly Hispanics, don’t see it that way. They see MAGA as a working-class movement.

It’s not a great thing for a society to have deep class divisions – but it’s a heck of a lot better than a deep racial divide. Class, in the U.S. and Canada, is not a fixed thing. It’s mutable, evolving and debatable. It’s about everything from lifestyle to mindset to culture, all which can and do change – unlike skin colour.

It’s notable that, while Ms. Harris and Democrats ran against the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision that ruled against a constitutional right to abortion, they never mentioned the monumental 2023 Supreme Court decision that declared affirmative action in college admission unconstitutional. Race-blind admission is a popular policy, even in Democratic-controlled California, where whites are a minority.

In the years to come, Democrats and Republicans alike will continue to appeal to voters on the basis of tribal identities – small town versus city, college versus blue collar, conservative versus progressive. But electoral appeals based on race have become a lot less salient in American politics. That’s progress.

Source: Donald Trump’s victory is about class, not race. And that’s a good thing

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Khrushcheva: Enablers, profit-mongers and blind believers sent Trump back to the White House

2024/11/11 Leave a comment

One of the more mordant commentaries:

…Mr. Trump had plenty of help in converting voters to his debauched religion. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch’s highly profitable propaganda machine, distorted discourse and stoked outrage. Tech billionaires supported Mr. Trump’s rise more directly – Elon Musk was Mr. Trump’s second-largestfinancial backer – in the hopes of benefiting from a deregulation spree. (Tesla shares have already surged.) Such tech titans – together with the silent powerbrokers of Wall Street, like Jamie Dimon – are the modern American equivalents of the German business leaders who thought they could control Adolf Hitler. Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans are under no such illusions, which helps to explain why even those who once attempted to challenge him have rolled over.

Cowardly Republican politicians have helped Mr. Trump to shake the political radioactivity that should have engulfed him after he incited his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The next day, figures like Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham finally seemed prepared to wash their hands of Mr. Trump. But days later, they refused to vote for his impeachment. And when Mr. Trump launched his campaign for the party’s nomination again, they quickly fell into line. Nobody wants to be on a dictator’s bad side. And, given the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling granting the president virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, Mr. Trump will be nothing if not a dictator.

How did it come to this? A majority of white Americans have lost faith in their country. Members of the profit-hungry business elite have gained an unfettered ability to use their pocketbooks to shape politics. And Republican politicians have sacrificed their own integrity – and American democracy – at the altar of power.

Source: Enablers, profit-mongers and blind believers sent Trump back to the White House

Filed under Politics Tagged with ,