Is America Doomed to Repeat Its Racist Past? -- Michael Tomasky

The minority that wants to hate has a passion however twisted, that most of the majority does not. And now they have the president of the country in their corner.

MICHAEL TOMASKY
08.26.17 12:00 AM ET

Each week of the Trump era brings some new, specific thing to be depressed about. One week it’s the future of the Constitution. Another it’s contemplating the shame of the United States starting a nuclear war. Another it’s something else.

In the wake of Charlottesville, it’s been race. More specifically, for me, the horror of the racial future that awaits us in both the short and longer terms. In the short term, it seems virtually certain that we’re in for another Charlottesville, and another, and another. It’s hard to think of any logical reason why the neo-Nazis wouldn’t march again; they got lots of publicity—not much of it positive, but as the old saw has it, they spelled their names right. And the president of the United States had their backs.

So one suspects that we’ll see more of these, and that the president will do what he has always done in cases like this and vacillate between reading a script with all the verve of a hostage and then saying and tweeting what he really thinks. It seems nearly impossible that it will dawn on him that as president he embodies the nation and should strive to represent both, or all, sides. He’s far too small-minded and insecure for that. And besides that, it’s increasingly hard to dispute the argument that this guy who does and says a lot of racist things is just plain racist, so he’s going to keep doing and saying racist things.

So that’s the short term. At the risk of tempting you to click away from this column and read something less morose, I have to say that right now, the long term for our country looks even worse.

If we look at our nation’s entire racial history, we see a pattern, and it’s not a reassuring one. I divide that history into six chapters.

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