The New Yorker:

In 2016, the idea that Trump was a cloaked white supremacist made him seem like a fringe character. What does it mean that his popularity has increased?

By Kelefa Sanneh

Eight years ago, at the dawn of the Donald Trump era, Toni Morrison spoke for many liberals when she described his election as a reaction to the “collapse of white privilege.” In an essay called “Making America White Again,” published in this magazine, Morrison argued that in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s Presidency many white people felt driven to “keep alive the perception of white superiority.” And she lamented “how eagerly so many white voters—both the poorly educated and the well educated—embraced the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump.”

This vision of Trump as the leader of an aggrieved white America took hold broadly during the early years of his term, boosted by the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, scarcely six months after he took office. Some of the marchers, who objected to the removal of a monument to Robert E. Lee, were carrying Confederate flags, and some were wearing “Make America Great Again” hats. After a counter-protester was run over and killed by a man who had praised both Trump and Adolf Hitler, Trump delivered remarks that helped define his Presidency. “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” he said. (He also added a qualifying follow-up: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists—because they should be condemned totally.”)

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