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Appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, former Governor Bill Weld, who is currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, did a great job of summarizing why Donald Trump has embraced white supremacists.

[Trump] and Steve Bannon decided a long time ago that their playbook is to divide the American people, get everyone all upset, and set everyone’s teeth on edge and then it will be easier for them to make their autocratic play and say “here’s our man on horseback coming to rescue all of us because everything is in such terrible shape.”

Back when Steve Bannon was directing the research efforts at Cambridge Analytica, he worked on how to psychographically target white Americans with messages about something called “race realism.” That is the new language to describe “scientific racism.”

…the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority; alternatively,it is the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes or genotype into discrete races.

In other words, Bannon was developing a political strategy that would tap into racism. When that kind of messaging was successful, it would lead to moral outrage. At that point, the plan was to accuse the critics of playing “identity politics.”

“The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day.”

After weeks of spewing racist rhetoric while promoting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, the president is demonstrating how that game is played.

The Dems new weapon is actually their old weapon, one which they never cease to use when they are down, or run out of facts, RACISM! They are truly disgusting! They even used it on Nancy Pelosi. I will be putting out a list of all people who have been so (ridiculously) accused! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 8, 2019

That’s the bad news. But recent polling from Stanley Greenberg provides the good news: that strategy is backfiring. He recently polled 1,700 registered voters by phone and summarized the results.