Jennifer Senior – The New York Times:
In the election of Trump, Coates sees an affirmation of his bleak worldview. “To Trump whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power,” he writes in the final essay here, recently published to much attention in The Atlantic.
This sentence causes inordinate heartburn for some. A loose translation, if needed: ethnic privilege is neither theoretical nor a stand-in for other social ills, but rather the primary cause of Mr. Trump’s elevation to the presidency.
That’s arguable, but only as an academic exercise. Every day the only agenda our president makes progress on is the minimization of his (black) predecessor’s administration. Eight years of Trump will leave little trace of Obama, and those pleased to read that are legion, more-so than any collection of un- and under-employed workers, Hillary haters, movement conservatives, and GOP loyalists.
“Every Trump voter is most certainly not a white supremacist,” Coates writes. “But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.”
Coates does have a way of putting a period on a sentence.
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A Random Stroll 