Dan Froomkin asks: How much of Trump’s support is due to racism?
There is one theory that fully explains the massive support that Trump continues to get among the Republican voting base: That they’re racist.
To be clear, this is a theory, not a conclusion.
But it’s certainly a likely enough theory that the mainstream media should be testing it to see if it’s true rather than avoiding the topic like the plague.
News consumers deserve an explanation for the MAGA phenomenon and right now they’re not getting it. And this theory certainly would explain a lot.
Our top newsrooms are too timid to go there, however. Racism, especially when it comes to calling specific people or practices racist, has long been the third rail of journalism. Newsroom leaders don’t want to be accused of stoking racial resentment, don’t want to alienate racist readers, and don’t want to have to defend their own insufficient attempts to diversify their newsrooms and sources. They just don’t want to go there.
Sadly, the fact that racism may be the key to understanding the current political climate hasn’t changed that aversion.
When mainstream journalists do address racism, they do so with euphemisms and denials. These days that means they understate the racist rhetoric from Trump and other leading Republicans, and they actively cover up the racism of his supporters and make excuses for them.
They don’t ignore racism entirely. What they do is worse: they normalize it.
The whole thing is worth reading.