or to put the words of my title into complete context:
According to recent polls, the image of Donald Trump as a bigot has begun to crystallize, and for good reason: Because it’s true!
So begins a column for today’s New York Times by the inimitable Charles M. Blow titled simply Donald Trump's Bigotry. And before I go any further, if you have been paying attention to trends on Twitter, that title has trended quite a bit, still on the trending list as I write this with 7,067 tweets (and without the direct promotion of #AmnestyDon by Morning Joe and company). It is trending with good reason. It is a superb, and timely column.
As is often the case, Blow provides a great deal of data from various polls, for example, from Quinnipiac last week which
found that 59 percent of likely voters, and 29 percent of likely Republican voters in particular, think that the way Trump talks appeals to bigotry. Republicans were the only anomaly. A majority or plurality of every other demographic measured — Democrats, independents, men, women, white people with and without college degrees, every age group, whites and nonwhites alike — agreed that Trump’s words appeal to bigotry.
Blow focuses in particular on how poorly Trump is doing among educated whites, particularly white women with college degrees, of whom he notes that ABC-Washington Post poll founds he trails by almost 20 points (which is a demographic Romney won). On college educated whites of both genders his quotes Nate Silver as saying
“Trump may become the first Republican in 60 years to lose white college graduates.”
But we know all that, at least, if we have been paying attention to the polls.
What makes this column valuable is how much further Blow goes.
Consider, for example, this observation by Blow:
Not only are these college-educated white women likely to recoil from a man they view as biased toward others, they also probably realize their own place as a historically disadvantaged group and know how very harmful bias can be.
There is also a great deal of analysis of much of Trump’s recent rhetoric which he, as others have done, points out is aimed at White voters, so much so that
Blacks and Hispanics are mere pawns in this appeal.
Blow then pivots a bit:
The fact remains that there is a disturbing racial undertone to the Trump campaign that goes far beyond the tired narrative of economic anxiety and distress among white people in the flyover states who feel ignored by conventional politicians.
Specifically, the issue is those people most attracted to Trump can be described as racial isolationists, and to prove this, Blow spends time exploring a recent working paper by Gallup senior economist Jonathan Rothwell titled Explaining Nationalist Political Views: The Case of Donald Trump, from which I quote the entire abstract:
The 2016 US presidential nominee Donald Trump has broken with the policies of previous Republican Party presidents on trade, immigration, and war, in favor of a more nationalist and populist platform. Using detailed Gallup survey data for a large number of American adults, I analyze the individual and geographic factors that predict a higher probability of viewing Trump favorably and contrast the results with those found for other candidates. The results show mixed evidence that economic distress has motivated Trump support. His supporters are less educated and more likely to work in blue collar occupations, but they earn relative high household incomes, and living in areas more exposed to trade or immigration does not increase Trump support. There is stronger evidence that racial isolation and less strictly economic measures of social status, namely health and intergenerational mobility, are robustly predictive of more favorable views toward Trump, and these factors predict support for him but not other Republican presidential candidates.
In other words, it is not trade, nor is it job loss nor is it socioeconomic status. It is very much a circumstance of those people most likely to support Trump are those with less direct contact with minorities on a regular basis, combined with some degree of lesser health and lesser social mobility. If that sounds like a description of Appalachian Whites, you are beginning to grasp the idea.
Blow explores this in some detail before his conclusion which points out why the tendencies we see among this people explains why they are not only drawn to Trump but accept his distorted presentations of America so uncritically. In the same final paragraph Blow concludes with these words:
But it is this same racial isolation that will make minorities and college-educated white voters avoid Trump like the plague.
Trump is a bigot.
His bigotry more easily plays with those with less experience of minorities on a regular basis.
His bigotry towards one group will antagonize other groups who have themselves experienced bigotry.
Now you know why I think this a very important column.