March 07--For as long as President Barack Obama has been in office, people have been calling for a conversation about race. Now that he's on his way out, it's finally begun to happen.
In just a few months, Donald Trump has done what Obama was unable to do in two terms. Except this isn't the kind of civilized discussion many Americans had hoped for. It's an ugly, hostile shouting match.
It has exposed the raw emotions of a nation that never reconciled its tumultuous racial past and that, for decades, has ignored calls to come together and chart a path for the future.
It has erupted into an argument that has brought out the worst in America. And Trump has been right there to take advantage of it.
Vice President Joe Biden was joking last week when he thanked Trump for helping the country face up to the racial divisiveness in America. But there was a lot of truth there too.
"He's making the American people look in the mirror," Biden said at a Washington event honoring Black History Month. "And the American people are honest. And they look in the mirror and see what's looking back at them."
Trump has become the Republican front-runner in the presidential race, in part, by preying on the deep-seated anger and mistrust that some people harbor for anyone who is different. He has tapped into the fears of a simmering group of white Americans who feel disenfranchised, even under siege, in the country they view as land harvested by their forefathers and deeded to them by heritage.
Trump's strategy isn't new. It's a variation of the Southern strategy from the 1960s when Republicans used race to rally support from white Southern voters who were fed up with the civil rights movement and its efforts to lift African-Americans to a level playing field. But in recent times, mainstream Republicans have largely rejected it, opting instead to try to win the support of a more racially diverse base of voters.
You would think a campaign that cultivates racial division would be obsolete by now. But actually, the timing is just right.
In the 1960s, the white anger was fueled by school desegregation and newly enacted voting rights laws. In 2016, it is fueled by the election and re-election of an African-American president.
While the majority of the country basked in having come together to pull off such a historic feat, many of those in the minority saw the election of a black president as a threat to their well-being and have harbored deep animosity for nearly eight years. They were more than willing to throw their support behind a candidate who would champion their cause to make America great again by returning it to their control.
