It does not follow that Trump voters think he's a racist, or believe that any racist tendencies of his will have any real impact. You can disagree with them on that. I sure do. But that doesn't make them racists. Not everything that has potential negative impacts on minorities is racist.
Yes, I listened to all the voter interviews on the news as well. It's absolutely amazing the sort of cognitive dissonance all those "not racists" engaged in to justify and rationalize voting for such a blatant racist who loudly and stridently announced his racist attitudes and intentions, over and over again throughout the campaign. No one who wasn't living under a rock could have failed to notice the upsurge in avowed white supremacists who supported that racist, who in his turn failed to disavow them (except in the most mealy-mouthed way when forcefully pressed on the issue). Self-delusion writ large.
American culture was built on racism, specifically white supremacism, "Manifest Destiny". It was the fundamental cause and foundation of the bloodiest and most destructive war ever fought on American soil, and quite possibly the most brutal civil war in history. It pervades so much of our assumptions about society, colours so much of our social and political interactions, creates divides and hurdles that are still extremely difficult for minorities to overcome. Our culture, especially in the south, is inundated with the symbols and practices of white supremacism; and many, many people are adamantly unwilling to reject and abandon those symbols and practices.
To refuse to acknowledge that undercurrent, to refuse to question the expression of of that racism, is to participate in it and perpetuate it.
Not all racism is cross-burning, church-shooting, ranting on street-corner obvious. Very little, in fact. The majority of racism is subtle, casual, "some of my best friends are" dismissive. As anyone who is black in this nation, who is Hispanic, even Asian, how they experience racism from day to day.
There was a great show on NPR about this a few days ago. The problem here is that people have a need to see themselves as the "good guys", to believe in their own virtue and piety. There is a natural unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge the bad things they do, because it harms their self-image to do so. Even the worst of people believe that they're the good guys, or at least that they're not any worse than anyone else -- egalitarian awfulness.
So they refuse to examine their own motivations, their own actions, and how those actions affect others. They have effectively said "I'm all that matters." It's not that they don't believe that Trump is racist, it's that
they don't care. It doesn't affect them, therefore it doesn't matter; and the cognitive dissonance this generates causes them to invent evasions and justifications for avoiding acknowledging the source and impact of that attitude. That's cultural racism, the refusal to examine the reasons we act the way we do, while continuing to support a culture and society permeated by institutional racism, and not caring about the impact it has on the targets of that racism. "As long as I get mine, I don't care enough about other people to change the way that I think or act."
