Inciting violence and unwilling to unite the nation, President Trump drives America to the brink

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times, June 1, 2020

Last fall Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis police union, appeared at a Trump rally, where he thanked the president for ending Barack Obama’s “oppression of police” and letting cops “put the handcuffs on criminals instead of us.”

The events of the past week, in which the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody led to demonstrations against police brutality, and these demonstrations were met by more police brutality — including unprecedented violence against the news media — have made it clear what Kroll meant by taking the handcuffs off. And Donald Trump, far from trying to calm the nation, is pouring gasoline on the fire; he seems very close to trying to incite a civil war...

The core story of U.S. politics over the past four decades is that wealthy elites weaponized white racism to gain political power, which they used to pursue policies that enriched the already wealthy at workers’ expense...

Trump’s economic policies have been the opposite of populist: They have been relentlessly plutocratic, centered largely on a successful effort to ram through huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and a so far unsuccessful attempt to take health insurance away from poor and working-class families.

        

Nor have Trump’s trade wars brought back the good jobs of yore. Even before the coronavirus plunged us into depression, Trump had failed to deliver major employment growth in coal mining or manufacturing. And farmers, who supported Trump by large margins in 2016, have suffered huge losses thanks to his trade wars.

So what has Trump really offered to the white working class that makes up most of his base? Basically, he has provided affirmation and cover for racial hostility.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/ct-nyt-opinion-trump-protests-america-brink-20200602-m75dnnfefzaihhqer7ob4aqi5q-story.html

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Paul Krugman is one of my two favorite columnists - E.J. Dionne is the other. Unfortunately, in this column he reveals the inability he shares with other liberals to understand why Republican appeals to white blue collar workers, who are harmed by Republican economic policies, have succeeded.

I have only voted for two Republican politicians in my life. I usually vote a straight Democrat ticket. If a Democrat is unacceptable to me, I do not vote for anyone running for that office. 

When I ask a white blue collar Republican why he votes Republican, he does not tell me that strong labor unions have forced employers to move production to low wage countries. He does not tell me that the graduated income tax punishes success.

He tells me about crime, especially black crime. He, his friends, and his relatives have probably been victims of black criminals. He tells me what it was like going to black majority public schools. He tells me about jobs he did not get because of affirmative action policies.

These are legitimate issues, issues that have been ignored by liberal Democrats like Paul Krugman. During the late 1950's and early 1960's those advocating civil rights legislation and the War on Poverty said they would cause blacks to perform and behave as well as whites. If this had happened, Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy would not have been effective. Indeed, Nixon would not have been elected president in 1968. A Democrat dove would have been elected. He would have ended the War in Vietnam.

It is characteristic of liberals that Paul Krugman's column makes no mention of the black ghetto riots that are destroying the stores and ruining the livelihoods of  whites and immigrants.