According to polls, the top issue in this year’s presidential race is inflation/the economy. But at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last week, there was just about no applause when he stated, “We will end inflation and make America affordable again. We’re going to get the prices down.” When did his audience explode with energy? When Trump gave them lines targeting immigrants, like “On day one of my new administration, the invasion ends and the deportations begin. We get them out.” And, speaking of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, “Do you trust her to stop the invasion?” In response, the crowd loudly chanted, “We need Trump! We need Trump!”
Regardless of what the polls say the top issue is, Trump knows that his rallygoers get most excited when he gives voice to white supremacy. Two weeks ago, at another rally in Pennsylvania, Trump claimed Black migrants were destroying the character of Springfield, Ohio, and then declared, “You have to get them the hell out. You have to get them out!” In response, the crowd delivered a bone-chilling chant: “Send them back! Send them back!”
Trump knows that his rallygoers get most excited when he gives voice to white supremacy.
Over the weekend, Trump told Wisconsin voters that he “will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs.” The facts don’t back up Trump’s claims of a migrant crime wave. (As Frank Figliuzzi noted in an MSNBC column Sunday, the feds just made a huge bust of a white supremacist gang trafficking in fentanyl.) But Trump doesn’t care about facts. He cares about scaring his predominantly white base and then persuading it to see him as the guardian of white America.
We know exactly which immigrants Trump is talking about given his long history of demonizing Latino immigrants and the comments he made when he was president, when he referred to Black nations such as Haiti as “shithole countries.” His supporters know that when Trump promises “mass deportation” — one of the themes of this year’s Republican National Convention — he means Black and brown people.
Everyone understands what Trump is about. But for too long there has been a tendency to excuse Trump’s wealthy supporters — like Elon Musk, who appeared at Trump’s rally on Saturday — as being on the Trump train only for the tax cuts or other financial gain — as Trump has explicitly promised them at big-ticket fundraisers. However, these wealthy and often well-educated people see the same headlines we do. They should understand that the most visible part of Trump’s campaign is racism, and it’s long past time they are called out for enabling Trump’s racist agenda.
As Forbes magazine detailed in its article on Trump’s top billionaires, some are outspoken, while some support Trump for unspecified reasons.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who posted after Jan. 6 attack that Trump should “resign and apologize to all Americans,” changed his tune in July when he announced he would endorse Trump. At the time Ackman wrote on social media, “We are in the midst of a perilous moment for our democracy.” (Seeing Trump, who is facing criminal charges for attempting a coup and called for the “termination” of the Constitution, as a guardian of democracy is laughable.)
Every one of these billionaires is telling us that in exchange for the policy goals they want, they are on board with or at least comfortable with Trump’s bigotry.
New York Jets owner Robert “Woody” Johnson said this year on Fox News that he is backing Trump again because “Americans remember how good it was or how much better it was on the border and inflation and gas prices and grocery prices, all that, during the Trump administration, and they want to get back there.” The Winklevoss twins, famously depicted in the film “The Social Network,” about the founding of Facebook, donated more than $1 million each to support Trump, citing Trump’s “Pro-Bitcoin Pro-Crypto Pro-Business” position.
But every one of these billionaires is telling us that in exchange for the policy goals they want, they are on board with or at least comfortable with Trump’s bigotry. After all, if racism were a deal-breaker for them, would they still be funding his 2024 campaign?
Others, like Musk, though, appear to be more openly on board with Trump’s extremist agenda. Musk has peddled the same types of bigoted attacks Trump has about Black migrants in Ohio, demonized DEI programs while suggesting white people are inherently smarter than Black people. And Ackman has been vocally critical of DEI programs with posts on X such as “DEI is inherently a racist and illegal movement in its implementation even if it purports to work on behalf of the so-called oppressed.”
Trump has become the head cheerleader for white victimhood and the defender of symbols of white power. This explains why on Friday he told supporters at an event in North Carolina he would rename the local military base to again honor the slave-owning Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who, as part of the Confederacy, fought to preserve chattel slavery.
“Should we change the name Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?!” Trump asked, and the crowd exploded with cheers. (The name of that base, like others that honored Confederates, was changed in 2020 when Congress overrode Trump’s veto of the bill.) Trump vowed that if wins, he is “doing it.” This syncs up perfectly with Trump’s defense of monuments honoring white supremacy as “beautiful” when he was president.
Those who claim that they’re supporting Trump for his promises of tax cuts or deregulation don’t get a pass when he’s using such racist language and promising to carry out racist policies. If a candidate campaigning on white supremacy is elected to the presidency again, they won’t be able to evade accountability with the claim that that’s not why they supported him.
“I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country,” Trump told Time magazine in April. He is reportedly planning a second-term overhaul of anti-discrimination law that his allies say would “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of color.” And as the American Civil Liberties Union has recently warned — citing the mandates of Project 2025 — if Trump wins there will be a dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs because he and his supporters have characterized them as “anti-white racism.” Indeed, 84% of his supporters are worried about “anti-white” discrimination.
Trump isn’t hiding his bigotry. In fact, it’s the cornerstone of his campaign. And if he’s returned to office, then everybody who helped him get there is responsible: those who voted for him because of the white supremacy and those who say they had other reasons but didn’t treat the white supremacy as disqualifying.