Courtesy photo
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Contributing Columnist
This is the first of a two-part series based on Hutchinson’s latest book, “Conned: Why
MAGA Nation?” (Middle Passage Press).
Nearly one year after President Donald Trump first won the White House in 2016, National Public Radio, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, surveyed attitudes of whites on racial discrimination.
In the survey, non-college-educated, lower-income whites were far more likely to protest that they were discriminated against. They cited instances where they believed they were discriminated against in getting a job, a raise, a promotion or getting into a college.
The prime culprit in their eyes were Blacks and other minorities.
“We’ve long seen a partisan divide with Democrats more likely to say racial discrimination is that reason Blacks can’t get ahead, but that partisan divide is even bigger than it has been in the past,” said Jocelyn Kiley, an associate director at Pew Research Center at the time. “That’s a point where we do see that partisan divides over issues of race have increased in recent years.”
It was natural for many lower-income whites to believe that they suffered the same harsh discrimination as minorities and there was no racial benefit from their white skin. The figures on white impoverishment were well known and were frequently cited.
The Republican Party didn’t help matters. For decades Republican presidents and lawmakers backed deep cuts in programs that would slash Medicare and supported partial privatizing of Social Security.
That again was true with the budget that the Republican-controlled Congress slapped on the table in February 2025. It would have hacked billions from Medicaid.
Trump enthusiastically egged on Republican congressional leaders. It didn’t matter that many of Trump’s backers would have been hurt by the unconscionable cut.
Whichever candidate got the Republican presidential nomination would get most of the votes in the general election in southern states. White voters in the poorest states were money in the vote bank for previous Republican presidential candidates dating back to Richard Nixon.
The theories that explained why so many blue-collar and poor whites repeatedly and reliably voted against themselves abounded. The most prevalent was that their votes were protests against the perceived decay of traditional religious and moral values and a push back against what they perceived as a dangerous socialist drift of the country.
They were thumbing their noses at the liberal elites, intellectuals, automaton bureaucrats and the social engineers in Washington. Trump with his quasi populist rip of the elites, fit neatly into that explanation.
To many, government spending and programs were tantamount to handouts to undeserving Blacks and the poor, which in turn equaled money snatched from the pockets of hard-working whites.
Citing statistics and charts to show that more whites benefit from and depend on these entitlement programs than Blacks and Latinos was unlikely to sway those who believed government served the minority poor away from voting for Republican candidates who would snatch those benefits away. That was pure, raw, unvarnished emotionalism grounded in deep-seated stereotypes and bigotry that always negated logic.
Trump masterfully played into and stoked that sentiment. In an interview in May 2024, he minced no words about whites allegedly getting a raw deal on discrimination.
“I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country,” Trump said. “I don’t think it would be a very tough thing to address, frankly. But I think the laws are very unfair right now.”
Trump was not about to leave it at simply ranting against alleged white oppression. He intended to take action if he got back to the White House.
The action was clear. He would launch an all out assault on any and every vestige of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in place at government agencies that promoted racial equity and diversity. That included government fund denial, personnel firings and targeting, bullying and harassing schools and government agencies to squash all diversity programs and initiatives.
One Trump opponent understood clearly that this was nothing more than naked pandering to the fears of many whites that they were getting the shaft in favor of minorities.
Trump’s wrath at whites allegedly having to bear the brunt of discrimination did not cancel the glaring opposite reality. That was that whites, no matter what their economic and social status, still had an advantage that was evident in every aspect of American life.
It was labeled by many as “white skin privilege.” Trump and company would never admit any such thing existed. Yet the evidence that it did was omnipresent.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Facebook Livestreamed.
