President Trump is trailing Joe Biden because of the revolt of the country’s largest voter bloc: whites without college degrees.
In the most recent Fox News poll, which has Biden up 8 points, Trump’s advantage over Biden with this subset is only 49%-40% — a 14-point decline from the network’s April survey, which found Trump leading with this group by 23 points. This swing exceeds the overall shift from Trump to Biden among suburbanites, independents, and moderates combined. It’s not middle management that is souring on Trump, it’s his base.
Why have voters who in 2016 made up 44% of the electorate and broke 2-1 for Trump over Hillary Clinton been swayed in the other direction the last 100 days? Less-educated whites are pessimistic about race relations and do not have confidence in Trump’s ability to improve them. It’s the only non-coronavirus issue where he consistently polls below overall voter preference. By suddenly racializing much of American life, the Black Lives Matter movement has achieved what nearly all corners of the political establishment tried and failed to do: separate Trump from his base. These voters are facing BLM’s imprimatur at every turn and will do just about anything to make it go away, even if that means electing Biden.
Consider what a day in this life is like. It begins with a Zoom meeting about white privilege led by the overeducated human resources director. It progresses to a midday errand where the checkout clerk asks for a donation to the NAACP. That evening, Uber Eats sends an app notification to steer the order to a black-owned business in exchange for free delivery. The NBA game on television, with no fans in attendance, shows the players kneeling during the national anthem. Switching on Netflix queues up a Black Lives Matter film collection.
What’s routine has become racialized, and the temptation to believe that this will stop when Trump leaves office is powerful. For working-class voters, hyper-racialization makes race relations worse, not better. It introduces a social code they will never be able to crack because it relies on gestures and other performative work rather than substantive deeds or beliefs. Four more years of this revolution seems at best exhausting and, at worst, dangerous. Trump must go beyond criticizing it and offer a credible alternative.
Trump should promote a colorblind society as the antidote to racialization. That does not suggest downplaying ethnic subcultures. It just means that skin color is something we all overlook and view as meaningless in everyday life. Government and society would aim to help those in need because of their concerns — unemployment, poverty, crime, police brutality — rather than their race. For all races, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Reversing racialization also requires helping those hurt by it. Trump should ask Congress to investigate the trend of employers firing workers for innocuous actions. Emmanuel Cafferty, a Hispanic man, was fired by San Diego Gas & Electric for allegedly flashing a “white power gesture” on a cellphone camera after the people recording him in the car next to his demanded he make the “OK” hand signal. Justin Kucera was axed from his job teaching social studies in Michigan after tweeting, “@realdonaldtrump is our president.” How on Earth is this statement of fact worth firing someone over?
The trend of terminating workers for contrived racism rather than underlying conduct threatens job security. The benefit of the doubt, previously afforded to the employee, has been given over to unaccountable social media critics. Most people have little taste for such vengeance. Even Christian Cooper, genuinely wronged by the overt racism of dog walker Amy Cooper in Central Park, nonetheless rued the fact that she lost her job over the incident that made them both famous.
A colorblind society is something a president who rose from the pre-BLM worlds of business, sports, and entertainment can appreciate. Part of the reason Trump in 2016 reversed years of Republican decline in black and Hispanic support was the nature of his longtime, high-profile association with nonwhite celebrities. These were relationships that for him seemed to hinge on talent and personality rather than racial identity. Trump should celebrate himself as someone who, flaws and all, judges people on anything but their skin color.
A post-racial society may seem far-fetched right now, but it is an aspiration from the early civil rights leaders up to President Barack Obama. It is also one that a majority of white voters have consistently shared and still do. The candidate that has the most satisfying response to the racialization epidemic will probably win the election. Biden can offer gestures. Trump can seek a colorblind society.
Rich Danker served in the Trump administration at the Department of Treasury.
