> Did Trump really get elected because of an over-abundance of ... writing about whiteness and cultural identity?
Yes, most emphatically. The white bread bowl of the Midwest is sick of driving 15 year old rusted out trucks and being told they need to support affirmative action, hearing all about how blacks were enslaved, Indians were driven off their lands and slaughtered. That guy driving to the Ford plant in his 15 year old rusted pick-up didn't do any of that. He doesn't see the connection between what happened then and why he should give more today. He's just sick of being told he's privileged.
Because he sure doesn't feel privileged. I know, I know, he probably got out of a speeding ticket somewhere, got the last chicken nuggets, the family practice doc hooked him up with another month of oxycontin, didn't have to pay sales tax at the gun store, whatever, yes, I'm sure he enjoyed moments of white privilege and didn't notice, but that's the nature of white privilege, isn't it? "Whitewashing" is quite pejorative, isn't it?
That subtext in all these 'we whitewashed X' articles, baked into magazines, newspapers, textbooks, has become a core unifying principle of the voters who elected Trump. Nationalism is cultural. Bannon is first and foremost a nationalist and speaks often of culture. Sessions was denied a federal court bench because of his history of racist statements. But he sure loves his country. Both of which probably helped him get elected to the Senate in Alabama. Do you suggest that Trump would have made it without Sessions, Miller (Sessions' former aide), and Bannon spoon feeding him a semi-coherent agenda?
The ugly currents of racism in America aren't going away any time soon. Racism's staying power comes from its paleolithic, evolutionary roots: other is danger. The concept of racism is about as close to the limbic system as civilization gets. And Trump and crew leveraged it to gain power and will continue to leverage it for at least the next 4 years.
Look, I'm a white guy in SoCal, I actually surf, but I grew up in Kansas and Nebraska, and I've lived all over. Man, there are a huge differences between life there and life here. And I'd argue that a lot of the East Coast, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line, is even worse.
But if anyone thinks another lashing is what the penitent need right now, just take a freaking pause. The 63% of America that's white is getting a little weary of it and the lesser minds in that 63% are voting en bloc for raving lunatics. It's not just Trump. It's the whole Republican ticket.
I grew up with this people. The left needs to find an agenda that includes the white guys in pickups who have been eating a baloney sandwiches and potato chips for lunch every day for the last 20 years and, if they're lucky, hope to continue eating baloney sandwiches for the next 30 years. They dream of sending their kids to college too.