The White Inevitability of Donald Trump

How complicit whiteness kept Donald Trump in power.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

The afternoon sun filters through my living room window, and I’m glued to the TV, watching in disbelief as a frenzied crowd of Trump supporters storm the nation's Capitol, armed with nooses, zip ties, and intentions to assassinate elected officials. My phone buzzes, and it's my editor, Katherine, on the other line. We're both silent for a moment, the chaos on the screen speaking louder than any words we could muster.

“Are you seeing this?” Katherine asks, her voice shaking with fear and disbelief.

“Yeah, I'm seeing it,” I reply, steady, but my mind is racing. “But you know what? Nothing's gonna come of this. Trump will be back.”

There's a pause on the other end, and then Katherine asks, “That can’t be true. This has to be the end of him, right?”

“Nah, he’s not going anywhere. Because people like him are inevitable in a nation like this,” I say, feeling the weight of history in my words. “This country was built on white people getting to commit violence like this. And men like Trump, they're just a reflection of that.”

“You’re right,” she says, low and contemplative. “White people have to do more.”

I stare at the screen as Donald Trump smiles at the pandemonium. “Yeah … they do.”

The TV continues to blare with shouts and breaking news alerts, the sound of history being made. But there's a kind of heavy silence between me and Katherine, it washes over all of the noise from the insurrection coverage, all of the chaos.

It’s a silence that speaks to the truth of the moment — Trump can get away with anything.

In the aftermath of January 6th, 2021, the day when the very citadels of American democracy quaked under the weight of the MAGA movement, for some, there lingered a certain expectation in the air. It was a hope, perhaps, for immediate and unequivocal justice. Yet, as days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, with Trump walking free, a disquieting truth settled upon many. It became clear that Trump would not only remain a force in this nation until his last breath but would imprint his legacy long after he is gone.

A twice impeached President would also now get away with trying to undermine the democratic process and procedure itself. Treason.

This was a surprising fact for millions, but not for me. I often feel that Black Americans understand white American systems and individuals better than they understand themselves. You see, expecting no repercussions for Trump is not born of cynicism, but an understanding of America’s historical dance with whiteness, power, violence, and impunity.

The resurgence of Trump as the Republican standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential race is less a surprise and more a confirmation of an enduring truth: America, in its persistent journey, has always hesitated — if not outright refused — to hold white supremacy and its purveyors accountable. The spectacle of Trump's return, or rather his continuity, is not an anomaly but a white inevitability. A reminder that white bigotry is not only protected, it is lauded.

This truth about white accountability whispers in the hallways of this nation’s government and echoes in the homes of its citizens. It's a truth that, despite its omnipresence, remains unseen and unfelt by most of those who walk the roads of white privilege. And it’s the essence of Donald Trump's power — a phenomenon that, despite nearly a decade under the magnifying glass of public scrutiny, remains misunderstood by most of America.

It is abundantly clear to me how misunderstood Trump’s power is by simply watching and listening to much of what’s said by most white people on the political left when discussing him.

A few nights ago, when it was announced that Donald Trump had won the Republican primary in New Hampshire, my television was turned to MSNBC. As I watched, a curious narrative began to take shape. There, amidst the clatter of political analysis and punditry, a concept emerged, weaving through the discourse with the subtlety of a whisper. The analysts framed Trump's victory as a revelation of his waning grip on the American psyche. They concluded that his failure to secure a more commanding win over presidential hopeful, Nikki Haley, was indicative of his weakened state, his diminished threat.

“They don’t really understand white supremacy, and so they don’t really understand Donald Trump,” I murmured to myself.

It is in this MSNBC narrative — this minimization of Trump's danger — that a grave miscalculation lies. It reflects a historical amnesia, or an ignorance, to the way power operates in America, not just in its overt conquests but in its ability to persist, to endure, to bury itself in the fabric of a nation's consciousness. To view Trump's victory through the lens of weakness is to ignore the potency of his appeal, the depth of his reach into the heart of American discontent. And it reminds me so very gravely of his first Presidential run in 2016.

Because the truth is — Trump is thriving.

Let us, for a moment, pause and consider the gravity of what Donald Trump has achieved. Here is a man enshrouded in controversy, a figure central to a storm of over ninety criminal charges, a person whose name is inextricably linked to an act of insurrection so brazen, so audacious, that it shook the entire world. And yet, amidst this maelstrom of chaos and treason, Trump emerges with a grip on the Republican base that is unyielding. That does not sound like a weakened adversary to me.

One must simply look to the results of the Republican primaries thus far, where his triumphs speak not just to a political victory, but to a deeper, more visceral resonance with the right-wing. Trump spent minimal time campaigning in the states he won, and invested scarcely in advertisements, yet still managed to vanquish his opponents — some having toiled for over a year, pouring resources into their campaigns. This is not the mark of a conventionally depleted politician; this is the signature of a force of nature in the political realm. To think of Trump as anything less would frankly be foolish.

Only a white supremacist force of nature could continue to make over one-third of adults believe that the 2020 election was stolen.

But Donald Trump's ascent and sustained influence stands as a testament not merely to the machinations of the Republican Party, but more profoundly, to the enduring power of whiteness in American society. It is a power that speaks less to the overt displays of supremacy and more to the insidious, often unacknowledged, undercurrents that have long shaped the narrative of race and privilege in the America.

In other words: there is a special place in the hearts of most white Americans for white supremacists.

That may sound harsh to some, but consider the white American family, a microcosm of this larger societal dynamic. Here, you often find Trump supporters seated at the same table as those who oppose him. They break bread together, share holidays, and intertwine their lives in the myriad ways that families do. This phenomenon isn't just about maintaining familial harmony or the avoidance of conflict. It's a manifestation of a deeper, more bleak reality: for many white Americans, the blatant racism, misogyny, and xenophobia that Trump embodies are not deal-breakers.

It is because of this, that paradoxically, Trump draws power from both those who directly support him and those who claim to despise him, because their complicity allows his ideology to perpetuate.

The same is demonstrated in a peculiar fascination the media has with the 'quirky' relationships where a white Trump supporter is romantic with a white Democrat. These stories are served up as charming oddities, vignettes of a democracy alive with diverse opinions. But this narrative, while seemingly benign, is dangerous. It represents the utmost white privilege.

Those sort of portrayals trivialize the gravity of what it means to support a figure like Trump. It's not merely a difference in tax policy or healthcare reform (as important as those things actually are); it's an endorsement of a man who has created one of the most prominent brands of white supremacy. A man whose handpicked Supreme Court Justices surgically decimated bodily autonomy. A man who has helped popularize the practice of public bigotry. To love or build a community with someone who supports such ideals is not a mere quirk. It is, in many ways, an unspoken acceptance, a normalization of Trump and his ideology.

The lack of true accountability for these supporters is a reflection of a broader societal issue. It's the privilege of not having to answer for the consequences of one's political alignment, a privilege steeply rooted in race. This white privilege allows the narrative to be about 'differences of opinion' rather than a confrontation with the undercurrents of white supremacy.

This is the sort of existence that is so often reserved for white people. As many non-white people have to consider our very mortality in the presence of Trump supporters and Republicans generally. The truth of white privilege is that your Trump supporting grandpa may have bought rope to build you a swing, but saved the rest of it to help lynch someone such as myself.

To ever truly defeat Trump, white people must reckon with the ways in which their everyday interactions — the dinner tables where they gather, the gyms where they exercise, the bars where they clink glasses — exist as arenas where the normalization and underestimation of Trump and Republican supporters help white supremacy not only survive but thrive.

It is in these seemingly mundane spaces that the nature of America’s sins lives. In white homes across this nation, conversations that should be charged with the urgency of confronting the deepest hatred are instead diluted into polite, surface-level exchanges. In these moments, the venom of white supremacy, cloaked in the guise of political difference, is allowed to seep into everything people claim to hold dear, unchallenged and unexamined.

In this vein, the potential of another Trump presidency does not shock me. It is the inevitable outcome in a society where white institutions and individuals persistently underestimate him and evade the fundamental responsibility of holding white supremacy to account, both systemically and personally. How can one harbor any illusions about the weakening of Trump’s power when there is a glaring reluctance to confront and hold accountable those in their own circles who embolden and empower his ideology?

Trump’s continued influence is not merely a political failure; it is a moral abdication. The reluctance of many white people to disrupt the comfort of social fabric, to truly challenge the uncle at the dinner table, the colleague at work, or the neighbor across the street who champions Republican rhetoric, is the soil in which the roots of Trump’s power deepens. It is a manifestation of the subtle nature of white supremacy, where its tenets are not just propagated by those in white hoods or on the fringes of society, but are often upheld in the simple interactions of everyday life.

How can one expect repercussions for Trump if there aren’t even repercussions for those supporting him?

The failure of white people to confront other white people demonstrates the pervasive seduction of white supremacy — it lulls many into a state of passive complicity. In the name of preserving harmony or avoiding conflict, white people allow these ideologies to fester, providing fertile ground for figures like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Nikki Haley, to flourish.

Trump’s tenure and his continued influence should serve as a call to those who claim to oppose him. It is not enough to simply denounce his words or to express dismay at his actions. The real work lies in the uncomfortable, in the confrontations had within communities, circles, families — within whiteness. It is about realizing that your are also at fault if there are no ramifications for the people in your life who endorse racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression.

In essence, the battle against Trump and what he represents is not just political; it is cultural, social, and deeply personal. It demands a relentless commitment to truth, justice, and a willingness to disrupt lives. It requires a radical reimagining of societal structures and a profound transformation of our individual and collective consciousness. Only then can we hope to truly divest from the ideologies that Trump espouses and forge a path toward a more equitable and just society.

Because if not, Trump and people like him, will remain a white inevitability.

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