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By declaring Mexican immigrants “rapists” on the first day of his campaign, he promoted an us-vs.-them worldview and found a political vein other politicians had not dared tap—or, if they had, only gingerly: whiteness. Trump won over millions of Americans whose attitudes could be summed up in the words of one supporter after his election: “He said things that people were thinking, not saying,” Rhode Island’s Eileen Grossman told USA Today.
特朗普在競選的第一天就宣布墨西哥移民多為“強奸犯”，他宣揚了“我們對抗他們”的世界觀，并發掘了其他政客們不敢明說的政治脈絡,即贏得白人的支持——或者，如果其他政客敢于觸及，也只是小心翼翼。特朗普贏得了數百萬美國人的支持，這些人的態度可以用特朗普當選后一位支持者的話來概括：“他說的是人們在想的，而不是說的，” 羅德島州的艾琳·格羅斯曼在接收《今日美國》采訪時表示。
What they were “not saying,” of course, had mostly to do with race. And Trump has said quite a bit over the past two years, from defending the “very fine people” at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to disparaging the “shithole countries” to shutting down the government and declaring a national emergency over an “invasion” of migrants that could “infest our country.”
當然，他們“沒有說”的大多與種族有關。而且特朗普在過去的兩年里，在弗吉尼亞州夏洛茨維爾舉行“白人至上”集會，為“非常優秀的人民”辯護；大罵“糞坑國家”；關閉政府，并宣布全國進入緊急狀態，因為移民的“入侵”可能“感染我們的國家”。
The 45th president has changed the way America talks about race—with profound consequences for the public (hate crimes spiked his first year in office) and both political parties. Republicans and Democrats are grappling with whiteness as an organizing element in American politics. Trump has been clear about his intentions. “I didn’t need to do this,” he said as he declared a national emergency over the wall. “The only reason we’re up here talking about this is because of the election.”
這位第45任總統改變了美國談論種族問題的方式，對公眾和兩黨都產生了深遠的影響（仇恨犯罪在他執政的第一年達到頂峰）。共和黨人和民主黨人都在努力將白人作為美國政治中的一個組織元素。特朗普已經明確了自己的意圖。“我不需要這么做，”他一邊說，一邊越過障礙墻宣布全國進入緊急狀態。“我們在這里討論這個問題的唯一原因是選舉。”
Trump’s strategy to rally white Americans poses significant challenges for both parties. For Republicans, it further alienates an increasingly diverse electorate. The number of white evangelicals and white voters without college degrees—the backbone of the GOP—is shrinking, while the number of African-Americans and Latinos is growing. Trump’s 2016 victory was narrow—he lost the popular vote. And the party’s midterms losses suggest that his all-out racial messaging strategy is alienating college-educated white suburbanites. According to Republican strategist John Feehery, Trump now needs to convince them that “he is not the racist the media and Democrats say he is.”
川普團結美國白人的策略對兩黨都構成了重大挑戰。對共和黨人來說，這進一步疏遠了日益多元化的選民。白人福音派和沒有大學文憑的白人選民（共和黨的中堅力量）正在減少，而非裔美國人和拉丁裔美國人卻在增加。特朗普在2016年以微弱優勢獲勝——但輸掉了普選。共和黨中期選舉的失利表明，他的全面種族信息戰略正在疏遠受過大學教育的郊區白人。共和黨策略師約翰-菲赫里表示，特朗普現在需要讓他們相信，“他不是媒體和民主黨人所說的種族主義者。”
But Democrats face an even thornier problem than Republicans. The party has defined itself in opposition to Trump and his small-tent agenda, but in doing so, it is promoting a vision equally rooted in race and identity. Leaders have organized around key parts of their base—women, African-Americans, LGBTQ people—and the issues that have kept these groups from fully participating in American society, including abortion restrictions, racism in the criminal justice system and a ban on transgender troops in the military. Of the identities, race is the broadest and most visceral, the legacy of slavery passed down through the decades in white guilt and black pain.
但民主黨人面臨的問題比共和黨人更棘手。共和黨把自己定義為反對特朗普和他的小帳篷議程，但這樣做是在推動一種同樣植根于種族和身份的愿景。領導者們圍繞著他們的核心群體——女性、非裔美國人、性少數群體——以及阻止這些群體完全投入美國社會的問題，包括墮胎限制，刑事司法系統中的種族主義，以及禁止軍隊中的跨性別士兵。在這些身份認同中，種族是最廣泛、最發自內心的，幾十年來，奴隸制的遺留在白人的內疚和黑人的痛苦中代代相傳。
When a photo surfaced from the 1980s medical school yearbook of Virginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, showing one person in blackface and another dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, party leaders called on him to resign (he refused but vowed to dedicate the remainder of his term to racial equity). A number of declared presidential hopefuls, including Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, have recently endorsed some form of reparations for African-Americans, a controversial proposal that Democratic presidential hopefuls opposed just three years ago in the 2016 campaign.
20世紀80年代，弗吉尼亞州民主黨州長拉爾夫·諾瑟姆的醫學院年鑒上出現的一張照片有一名黑臉男子和另一名裝扮成三K黨成員的男子，民主黨領導人要求拉爾夫辭職（他拒絕了，但發誓要在余下的任期內致力于種族平等）。包括參議員卡瑪拉·哈里斯和伊麗莎白·沃倫在內的多位已宣布參選的總統候選人，最近都支持對非洲裔美國人進行某種形式的賠償，就在三年前的2016年大選中，民主黨總統候選人還反對一項有爭議的提議，而這項提議就在三年前的2016年大選中還遭到了民主黨總統候選人的反對。
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