Why did racial minorities vote for Trump?
by: Samarra, Calliope, Brianna, and Tae
Samarra: The 2020 election taking place during a pandemic and in the midst of social unrest regarding the recent Black Lives Matter protests has just added onto the confusion that often follows a presidential election. It is already difficult to pinpoint exactly why trends occur, but now we have so many factors to deal with. The matter of racial demographics is quite interesting specifically because of how polarized the two campaigns are in regards to BLM and racial inequality. One would assume that Biden would have a clean sweep win among BIPOC voters, but this wasn’t exactly the case. In fact, Trump somehow GAINED votes in certain minority demographics which is hard to believe with what is going on with race in America today. I definitely side with the explanation “the depolarization of race and the polarization of place,” which basically explains why Trump’s votes come from mainly rich, non-college educated people that live in the suburbs while Biden’s votes are from mainly lower income, college educated 20-something year olds that live in cities. It is still hard to believe, though, that race in this era would be something that is depolarized.
Calliope: I totally share your view about which demographics tend to go for Trump--although I just read that three in five white Americans voted for Trump and realized that Trump supporters make up a much larger percentage of the white vote than I thought. Beginning in July, I began looking into the Black vote for Trump. I couldn’t possibly understand where they were coming from and, as I watched Trump invite convicted felons who aimed shot guns at peaceful BLM protests to the Republican National Convention or refused to denounce white supremacy during the first presidential debate, my confusion deepened. It wasn’t until I read Louis Hartz’s The Liberal tradition in America that I began to find some clarity. Hartz suggests that the root of American democracy is irrational Lockeanism. Since America was founded on an already developed liberalism, we have always seen Lockeanism as essential to the extreme. For people of color, I believe it is irrational, illogical, to support a leader who is actively racist and trying to take away your rights. The more I listened to Trump and his Black supporters, I began to realize that Donald Trump’s success can be attributed to irrational Lockeanism. They are willing to accept all the terrible things in the name of American, Lockean, freedom.
Brianna: Wow. I think that three in five number is the scariest thing for me. It's something that you don’t really realize when you live in an area as blue as New York City, especially as a person from Queens where we have the largest minority population in the five boroughs. I agree with most of what you say. Despite gains, Biden did for the most part have a clean sweep for POC voters, especially BIPOC voters, since it was black communities in Atlanta and indigenous communities in Arizona that were crucial to turning the tides of the election and getting Biden those last few electoral votes. I don’t think that the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement added on to confusion in the election. Rather, I think it allowed both candidates to show exactly where they stood. When Trump said “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”, and refused to condemn white supremacy in the first presidential debate, he made it abundantly clear how he felt. I do fully agree with you, Calliope, when you mention irrational Lockeanism. I think when it comes to Black Trump supporters it’s as Collins said in his article: for them, the way they make their decision is fundamentally different than most other Black voters. They look at it in a very individualistic way, and are able to justify whatever marginal economic gains they might receive under Trump (which is not true for the majority of Black voters), and project their gains onto the rest of the Black community as a reason why all of us should supposedly vote red. It’s a way of alleviating the cognitive dissonance that occurs when you attempt to justify supporting a candidate that has for decades has spoken and acted in ways that are blatantly harmful to the Black community, and has made horrific comments directed at your community specifically.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opinion/election-2020-exit-polls.html?searchResultPosition=3
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/us/politics/trump-presidency.html
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/6/21552521/georgia-election-results-trump-obamacare-website
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-latinx.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/2020-election-results-prove-density-destiny/617027
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/us/joe-biden-black-voters.html?auth=login-google
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21537966/trump-black-voters-exit-polls
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21537966/trump-black-voters-exit-polls