US politics has long been shaped by policies specifically crafted to win the fealty of recognised minorities — a logic that assumes the largest single electoral demographic can be ignored at best or, just as often, actively disparaged. Donald Trump has shot down this canard.
Much – probably too much – has been made of Donald Trump’s popularity with the Alternative Right (or Alt-Right), an internet-based network of white nationalist trolls. They serve has his praetorian guard on Twitter, dividing their time equally between harassing his opponents and composing propagandic memes. Indeed, the myth of the Angry White Man has been enlisted by Trump’s opponents more than all the cracks about bad hair and orange skin put together. But the role that race and gender has played (and continues to play) in Trump’s ascendency can’t be waved off so easily. A new poll by the Pew Research Center shows that Trump leads among college-educated white men, 49% to 42%. Compare this to an earlier Pew poll’s finding that whites overall prefer Trump 51% to 42%, and men overall prefer him 49% to 43%.
Before going on, let’s take a moment to reflect on one fact: Hillary Clinton leads among blacks (91% to 7%), Hispanics (66% to 24%), and women (59% to 35%) – statistics her political and media allies tout with orgiastic relish. That a candidate appeals to protected identity groups is meant to be inherently appealing. These groups are basically assumed to be an on the side of the angels, and politicians are expected to tailor their policies accordingly. Indeed, one of the great identity crises raging in the GOP is whether Republicans should make themselves more agreeable to Hispanics or blacks. That blacks and Hispanics are simply incorrect for voting overwhelmingly Democratic never occurs to the Republican establishment. If the conservative message doesn’t resonate with minorities, their thinking goes, then there must be something wrong with conservatism.
That vacuous, pliable attitude is dangerous in itself, and there’s no need to dwell on it at any great length. Everyone knows that pandering to race and gender is deplorable; it’s just a matter of whether or not you’re willing to commit deplorable acts in order to get elected.
Politicians and commentators are, however, loathe to discuss a candidate’s appeal to white men one way or the other. It’s impossible to say that appealing to whites – still by far the largest ethnic group in the United States – is intrinsically negative. Then again, appealing to them can’t be intrinsically positive either: political correctness won’t allow it. Ditto for gender: appealing to men isn’t usually considered a thing to be condemned, but the PC censors would never allow it to be regarded as a thing to be applauded either. To all intents and purposes, the white male vote is purely incidental.