Americans are catching on to the racist reality of Donald Trump … some of them faster than others.
According to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 57 percent of Americans think Trump’s policies have been bad for Muslims, and 56 percent think they’ve been bad for Hispanics. Forty-seven percent, including three-quarters of blacks, think they’ve been bad for African Americans.
Fifty-seven percent of all adults, including more than 8 in 10 blacks, three-quarters of Hispanics and nearly half of whites, said they think Trump is racist. Eighty-five percent of Democrats consider Trump racist, but just 21 percent of Republicans agree.
White people have some catching up to do—and again, that’s catching up with reality. There are things that we shouldn’t even label opinion polls but rather “who is living in the real world” polls, and Donald Trump’s racism is on that list along with climate change and evolution.
About the same percentage of people who don’t see the Trump reality can’t see—or refuse to see—the basic American reality:
Just over half of all Americans surveyed in the poll — 51 percent, including 79 percent of blacks and 44 percent of whites — think African Americans continue to face disadvantages to getting ahead in the U.S. That’s compared with 22 percent who think blacks actually have advantages and 26 percent who think race makes no difference in getting ahead. Majorities also think Muslims (60 percent), immigrants (59 percent), LGBT people (52 percent) and Hispanics (51 percent) face disadvantages in American society, while close to half (45 percent) think women face similar hurdles. About 6 in 10 think whites and men have advantages over other groups.
Safe to say the 22 percent who think black people have advantages can be put squarely in the “racist” column, while the 26 percent who think race makes no difference are suspect (either of racism or too-stupid-to-breathe-ism). Seriously, even if you set aside statistics from wealth inequality to income inequality to mass incarceration and on and on (and seriously, don’t set them aside), consider that there are people walking around today who got their heads bashed in for seeking the right to vote or sit at a lunch counter or ride a bus. You think that level of racism just evaporates in 50 years or so?
White people: Do better. Tell your families. Tell your friends: Donald Trump is racist and African Americans face disadvantages to getting ahead in the U.S. These are not subjects for serious debate.