I think his victory speaks of an economic division, particularly geographically, that has grown hugely in the last decade, for obvious reasons. He exploited this by discussing the types of solutions the political mainstream wouldn't touch because it involves tariffs, bashing climate change etc etc...... those issues helped him hugely and were a significant part of the victory.
The populist stuff (Mexicans, the wall etc) is politically divisive but I doubt it involved anybody actually changing their mind. He gave a voice to the 'silent majority' and the rest reacted the way they always do, with unabashed fury.
I think we drastically underestimate the extent to which race is always going to be an issue in US politics. As a social issue it is off the charts in terms of our own issues.
It is a little unfair to say he had nothing but race on his side. National politics is performance and he was more than capable of that, particularly when you look at who he ran against.
Trump v Obama would have been a great campaign.....
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
Oh, I do appreciate that. You can't run a country that for its first 190-odd years enslaves, disenfranchises and legally discriminates against a large proportion of its citizens on the basis of their race without it being an absolutely epic political fault line.
Our racial (N.B. not religious) situation is vastly better and we have the legacy of having run the biggest empire the world's ever seen, ffs!
However, the mistake lies in thinking that a weight of historical wrongs is enough to convince white people whose lives are shítty now to just put up with it because black folks have had it worse. People just don't work like that and calling them 'racist' because they vote for a guy who says he's going to make it better is a remarkably silly response.
I'm not saying he had nothing but race on his side. I said it was his sole USP. Think about it: would a white senator with Obama's experience, charm, speaking ability, etc have got anywhere near the media traction he did? Of course not. He had the race card and he played it rather skilfully. I don't blame him, I just don't think you can do that and then complain about race being an issue.
As a side note, of course, what's pretty funny is that an awful lot of black Americans don't actually see Obama as properly black. Rich, half-white, born in Hawaii (supposedly ) and with an African father rather than being the descendant of slaves. They would argue that he never really lived the black experience. That's how fücked up questions of race are in the US.
Yes. In the heat of a 'common sense' election campaign they are great ideas. In the real world they are more complicated which is why he hasn't actually done any of them. He made promises he couldn't keep but at least he was too ignorant to know he couldn't keep them. Its an honesty of sorts.
THe others know they
I think the point is that race is always an issue. Without question there were millions of americans who were terrified of having a black guy in the White House. For the first black President, race is always going to be the issue that overshadows everything else.
The colour of his skin divides the country. Trump's campaign was incredibly divisive but there is an odd quality here isn't there- isn't all partisan politics divisive? Isn't that the entire point of it?