Politics, racism, and the human condition

Various sources reported (and this) that Trump has nominated Jeremy Carl, a self-described champion of white identity, to lead the State Department’s outreach to international organizations. Carl’s 2024 book, The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart, argues that white Americans face systematic persecution through civil-rights enforcement, DEI programs, immigration policy, and cultural institutions across education, media, law, business, and government. Stripped of its policy language, the argument is a repackaged appeal to the old fear that white people are being replaced and subjugated by non-white Americans and immigrants. Carl makes the fear explicit by endorsing the Great Replacement theory, calling the Civil Rights Act an anti-white weapon, and dismissing Juneteenth as race hustling and white-shaming. Primal fear is the glue that holds debunked American racist narratives together. Carl’s nomination signals that those narratives now have a seat at the center of US foreign policy. (link 1, link 2)

Whether the Senate confirms Carl’s nomination is unclear. At least one Republican senator is uneasy with Carl and opposes his nomination. A Democratic senator referred to Carl as wildly unqualified for this job. (link 3, link 4, link 5)

Research on the 2024 presidential election indicated that four issues were the main drivers of support for Trump, inflation, immigration, the anti‑woke/DEI/transgender politics cluster, and sexist attitudes toward Harris and women leaders. All of those issues were distorted by ruthless MAGA demagoguery, lies, slanders, and irrational emotional manipulation. MAGA propaganda relied heavily on conspiratorial “white replacement” rhetoric, and false and misleading claims about crime, immigration and Harris herself. The anti‑woke cluster of concerns largely reflected perceived status loss by whites and men in a diversifying, more egalitarian society, arguably making it a subtype of racial and gendered status‑threat politics. However, many Trump supporters sincerely describe their concerns as about speech, merit, or religious freedom, even though the overall pattern of attitudes aligns more with defending existing racial and gender hierarchies than with neutral principles alone. (link 6, link 7, link 8, link 9)

MAGA politics, racism & the human condition

Obviously, racism is not a modern invention or a superficial cultural habit. It is deeply rooted in fundamental features of human social cognition and social behavior. Evolutionary psychology and decades of experimental research show that humans automatically (mostly unconsciously) categorize people into in-groups and out-groups. In-group favoritism is a basic feature of social cooperation that can be exploited to produce hostility toward outsiders. MAGA demagoguery is highly focused on exploiting race to produce hostility toward opposition to Trump and MAGA authoritarianism. Data from several million Americans indicate that about 65% display an automatic pro-White/anti-Black bias. That includes members of third-party racial groups such as Asian and Latino Americans who generally have little personal stake in White–Black relations. (link 10, link 11, link 12, link 13)

When people perceive threats to their group’s status, in-group loyalty intensifies and out-group hostility deepens. That dynamic that is especially potent when the threatened group has historically been dominant. In diverse environments, individuals high in authoritarianism become markedly more racially prejudiced and politically intolerant, while non-authoritarians become less so—meaning diversity itself activates a latent authoritarian disposition in those predisposed to it.

MAGA politics exploits these deep-seated human biases with relentless precision. Trump’s rhetoric systematically dehumanizes immigrants, calling them animals, vermin, and an invading force that will make America no longer recognizable. Scholars see that demagogic language as historically associated with genocide and mass violence. Research data indicates that authoritarianism in the United States is raced, and heavily associated with white people. As long as the perceived, demagoguery-boosted racial threat remains a strong presence if American life, authoritarianism will haunt American democracy. American white supremacists and white nationalists are keeping the illusory racial threat alive. (link 14, link 15)

MAGA’s racist policy tactics and manifestations are concrete. Trump’s racial demagoguery and mass deportation campaign includes military-style ICE raids on homes, schools, and churches, with proposals and guidance that would greatly expand warrantless arrests and make civil‑rights accountability far more difficult Now, ICE agents are encouraged to make warrantless arrests and granted effective but illegal immunity for civil-rights violations. Also, DEI programs across federal agencies have been dismantled by executive order on the first day of Trump’s second term, explicitly reversing policies designed to address systemic racial inequality. States including Georgia and Texas have implemented voter-suppression laws and racial gerrymandering that disproportionately strips Black, Latino, and Asian American voters of political power. For example, black mail-ballot use in Georgia fell from 29% to 5%. (link 16, link 17, link 18)

Q1: Do Trump and MAGA elites cynically play the race card, or are their arguments that what they do is fair, warranted and race-neutral?

Q2: Is Trump a racist, or is he non-racist but cynically playing the race card as part of his personal wealth and power campaign?