Justin Gest is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He recently published a new book, The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality. For more information, see www.TheNewMinority.net.

Hillary Clinton’s recent reference to many of Donald Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” comprised of racists and homophobes only made explicit what her advertisements and other public statements have insinuated.

Three weeks ago, she released a video that confronts Trump with the support he has received from white supremacists. In it, Jared Taylor, editor and founder of the white-supremacist magazine American Renaissance, is quoted from an interview with CNN: “Sending out all the illegals, building a wall, add a moratorium on Islamic immigration—that’s very appealing to a lot of ordinary white people.”


It’s pretty obvious what Clinton hopes to get from this line of campaigning: Underscoring Trump’s endorsements from white supremacists might deter moderates, independents and mainstream Republicans who are loath to be associated with the right-wing fringe.

However, her mudslinging also condemns Trump voters—half of them, at least—who may support Trump’s social platform, but not in the interest of institutionalizing the supremacy of white people. These white working-class voters support Trump because he articulates their complicated discomfort with immigration and demographic change.

Some observers are quick to call them racist—and certainly some are. But over the past six months, I’ve interviewed more than 100 white working-class people both here and in the United Kingdom, where a similar nationalist surge has triggered accusations of racism.

My interviews suggest that there is a complexity to Trump’s supporters that is not as simplistic as a yes-no binary about whether they’re racist. Millions of Trump’s supporters exist in the vast space between Wall Street and Breitbart.

Is it racist to associate immigration with the greater globalization of commerce that has altered the economic prospects of outmoded people? Is it racist to be frustrated that members of ethnic minorities are rendered new advantages unavailable to white people, such as affirmative action policies and ethnicity-specific advocacy? Is it racist to believe that white working-class people are underrepresented in political leadership or vilified in popular media?

Clinton’s decision to lump all voters with these concerns into the sweeping category of “racist” might motivate her base, and might even be correct as a short-term political calculation: She probably won’t win over these voters. But there’s a long-term societal risk here: Shunning them as racists pushes them only deeper into pockets of private discomfort, where their perceptions go unexposed and unchallenged—entrenching their views and further polarizing the American public.

Ultimately, Clinton’s statements will worsen a long-term social dilemma among the voters she broad-brushes—how Americans understand racism itself.

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“Racism” is a powerful word in American culture, and an important one to talk about. It’s the right way to describe the long history of prejudice and discrimination against people on the basis of their looks and ancestry. It’s also important to identify in modern society, linking contemporary expressions and ideas to earlier injustices, such as the enslavement of blacks or the genocide of native people. While they may not be equivalent, housing discrimination and police violence against African-Americans—enduring forms of racism—are thus rightly seen as legacies of past oppression. This is valuable because it contextualizes the choices and policies of contemporary Americans in our troubled history of race.

However, allegations of racism are now viewed by many white people as a means of wielding their ancestors’ misdeeds to unfairly disqualify their dissenting viewpoints in the present.

In the view of many of the voters Trump is speaking to—not just the “alt-right,” but disaffected white voters across the board—it’s crucial to talk frankly, even critically, about the perils of Islam, immigration and Black Lives Matter, even if it means offending some listeners. And on the more politically activated end of that spectrum, such voters see suppression of their ideas is part of a broader conspiracy to impose a liberal worldview.

It’s a perception that has been seized by Trump—“We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore,” he said in his July GOP convention speech—but also by far-right leaders in Europe, like Britain’s Nigel Farage, the former head of the UK Independence Party and one of the leaders behind the UK's departure from the European Union.

Both Trump and Farage have heralded the power of their countries’ “silent majority”—a hushed constituency of predominantly white voters whose views have long been ignored. Many of these purportedly ignored views scapegoat minority groups for broader social problems—often based on stereotypes, myths and prejudice.

But even well-meaning conservative critiques of social policies have been tarnished by far less valid accusations of racism.

From the time I’ve spent interviewing white working-class people in the United States and the UK, I’ve seen how many people find Trump’s and Farage’s unfiltered statements refreshing. The two men elevate hearsay to podiums and shout the very ideas that supporters have been too intimidated to mutter under their breath.

In Britain, dozens of my respondents would often preface their most candid thoughts to me by stating “I’m not a racist, but … ”

“I’m not racist, but this country’s covered by blacks and Bosnians.”

“I’m not racist at all. I’ve got black cousins and nieces. But the Polish have been taking all of the work and running prostitution and drug rings.”

“I’m not a racist. I fucking love goat curry, pardon my language. But the principle of English families not coming first is just not right.”

These individuals had not endured hours of sensitivity training; they were concerned that their ideas would be disqualified, when they are, in fact, sincere expressions about how their societies are being transformed.

Racism is perceived to be a “mute button” pressed on someone while they are still crying out about a sense of lost status—from a position of historic advantage, frequently in terms they have difficulty articulating.

Therefore, the preface “I’m not racist” is not a disclaimer, but rather an exhortation to listen and not dismiss or invalidate the claims of a group that feels marginalized.

Interestingly, those respondents who were able to more specifically articulate their frustration framed it in the civil rights themes of equality and justice.

An unemployed 18-year-old Londoner said, “You go for an interview and most of the employers are Asians. Basically, they’re discriminating against us, and we were here first. I have some training as a retail sales assistant. But when I’ve submitted my CV, I’ve been told that I can’t apply because I’m not Asian. … I feel like I’m beneath them.”

Back in the United States, an electrician from Youngstown, Ohio, told me that “white people have become the minority itself. … People have freaked out on me for things I’ve said because I can’t say anything [about black people] because of slavery and their historical oppression. People aren’t looking for equality; they’re looking for retaliation.”

These two were not members of any white-supremacist group. Many white working-class individuals simply view the broader struggle against racism as one that demotes white people, rather than promotes others to equal ground.

They feel estranged from minority groups, who they believe have access to new privileges that compensate for historic advantages that today’s white working-class people do not recall exploiting. They feel alienated from an urban white bourgeoisie, which has divorced their less skilled or geographically isolated co-ethnics and look down upon them. And they feel blamed for neither empathizing with the plight of minorities, nor mobilizing to overcome structural poverty and embrace global cosmopolitanism.

***

To govern effectively, Hillary Clinton needs white people to buy into the social change she heralds. So instead of casting them as outmoded bigots, she could point to how the very social forces that entrench white working-class people into poverty also entrench minority groups—that there are no white problems or minority problems; there are just problems.

She can assert that the status quo for white (and nonwhite) working-class people is reinforced not by the pursuit of political correctness, but instead by the propagation of racial divisions between us.

By dismissing Trump’s supporters as racist—however rightfully in many cases—Clinton further numbs many white people to the sensitivity with which racism was once regarded. It erects a barrier between Clinton’s pursuit of equal justice and the defensive holdouts with whom she must ultimately cooperate to achieve her vision of social progress.

Silencing and demonizing Trump’s supporters as racists simplistically shuns them into the ideological silos that segregate our society. We will never find common ground if we don’t share space.