USA Africa Dialogue Series - A PERSPECTIVE

Obama's role in Trump's rise

Jamelle Bouie

Slate.com

The "most important catalyst" in the rise of Donald Trump, said Jamelle Bouie, was the presidency of Barack Obama. Obama has governed as a mainstream, center-left Democrat, but his election "was very much a radical event"—an inversion of this country's traditional racial hierarchy. To millions of white Americans, Obama seemed to appear from nowhere, seizing the White House with heavy support from blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities. Exultant liberals proclaimed a new era of multicultural diversity, with a durable Democratic majority—which many whites heard as a warning that their loss was permanent. "The days of [minorities] not having any power are over, and they are angry," Rush Limbaugh warned his talk-radio audience. This anxiety was heightened by the Great Recession, which cost many working-class whites their jobs and degraded their status. It was in this context that Donald Trump became the leading spokesman of "birtherism"—the belief that Obama is foreign-born, and thus an illegitimate president. (Polls show that more than 60 percent of Trump's voters still believe Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya.) When Trump says he'll "Make America Great Again," his followers hear him saying, When I'm president, white Americans will be back on top again.

COURTESY OF: THE WEEK MAGAZINE, MARCH 25.

Samuel Zalanga, Ph.D.

Bethel University

Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Reconciliation Studies,

Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, #24, Saint Paul, MN 55112.

Office Phone: 651-638-6023

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