I'M NOT RACIST, MY LEADER JUST TREATS ME LIKE I AM...:

Despite four years of numbing vileness, Donald Trump's determination to degrade us retains its power to shock.

Plumbing America's psychic cesspool for bigoted votes and feral adulation, Trump has targeted four controversial Democratic congresswomen -- the ardently progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar -- as magnets for his race-based xenophobia. [...]

 

Go back where exactly, one wonders. Three were born in America to families of Puerto Rican, African-American, and Palestinian descent; Omar is a naturalized American citizen from Somalia. Their only shared demographic is that they are women of color. By roiling the fever swamp of misogyny and race, Trump clearly risks inciting violence -- exposing, yet again, a soul barren of empathy or conscience.

Americans writ large are better. In a poll following his initial tweet, 68 percent found it offensive; 59 percent "un-American." Trump's bigoted railings might seem self-destructive. Yet Trump not only claimed to be "enjoying" the ensuing disturbance but boasted that he was "winning it by a lot." 

Seemingly, he was redefining victory with his customary solipsism: Most voters opposed his attacks but his approval rating rose among Republicans.

And so however personally congenial they may be, Trump sees his racial provocations as strategic. Notes the Atlantic: "[I]nstead of campaigning on his administration's signature achievements -- cutting regulation, appointing conservative judges, presiding over steady economic growth -- [Trump] seems intent on reprising his 2016 run, a campaign largely built on fear, resentment and division."  [...]

Understand how the Electoral College works at present, and you grasp why Donald Trump is laser-focused on converting an ardent minority of voters into a majority of electors: It worked the last time, and may well again. As Nate Cohn suggests, Trump's electoral college advantage may be even greater than was in 2016, when Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million Americans, yet won the Electoral College 304-227. 

Cohn writes:

That persistent edge leaves him closer to reelection than one would think based on national polls, and it might blunt any electoral cost of actions like his recent tweets attacking four minority congresswomen.

For now, the mostly white working-class Rust Belt states, decisive in the 2016 election, remain at the center of the electoral map... The Democrats have few obviously promising alternative paths to win without these battleground states... 

A strategy rooted in racial polarization could at once once energize parts of the president's base and rebuild support among wavering white working-class voters. Many of these voters backed Mr. Trump in the first place in part because of his views on hot-button issues, including on immigration and race.

Therefore the president's strategy for 2020, an adviser says, is to "win where we won in 2016." This year he has held campaign rallies exclusively in the swing states that made him president -- Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida. 

Trump's attacks on the four congresswomen epitomize that effort. Trump escalates them daily - a recent tweet labeled them "a very Racist group of troublemakers who are young, inexperienced, and not very smart," adding that they were "against humanitarian aid at the Border... And are now against ICE and Homeland Security"

Little wonder that a spokeswoman for a pro-Trump super-PAC says: "The president can turn out his base like no other president ever seen before in my lifetime. He has a way of exciting people to get them the polls." 

He sure does -- at whatever cost, we will see it every day until November 2020. As of now, the super-PAC intends to invest in only six states -- all of which Trump won.

Cohn understands the reasons: "[T]he major Democratic opportunity -- to mobilize nonwhite and young voters on the periphery of politics -- would disproportionally help Democrats in diverse, often noncompetitive states." Conversely, "the major Republican opportunity -- to mobilize less educated white voters, particularly those who voted in 2016 but sat out 2018 -- would disproportionately help them in white, working-class areas overrepresented in the Northern battleground states.

In short, the Electoral College turbocharges demographic sorting -- and racial politics of the worst sort. 

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