Trump Has Nurtured a Generation of Racist Bullies. The Damage is Already Done.
To understand precisely how Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has changed America, one need only look at a new pair of surveys. In April the Southern Poverty Law Center discovered that the Trump campaign has triggered an unprecedented wave of bigoted bullying in American schools: More than two-thirds of the teachers surveyed have had immigrant, Latino and Muslim students express fear about what will happen to them or their families if Trumps wins, while more than one-third have directly witnessed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant prejudice.
More recently, Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell learned that Trump supporters are less likely to be directly affected by trade and immigration (two of Trump’s top issues) and more likely to be white, suffer from diminished intergenerational mobility and feel generally apprehensive about nonwhite minority groups.
In short, there is no doubt that Trump has both capitalized on and inspired a new wave of racial hostility in this country. The only question left is, What will happen after he is gone?