I doubt the president's* advisors are really happy about his race-baiting tirades against "the squad" and now Elijah Cummings. At this point anyone a shade darker than Melania who votes for tRump will be someone with an identity problem.
The Donald is not a student of history or of much of anything, but he does know how to connect with the fears and hatred many whites have for people of color, whether Mexican immigrants or the descendents of slaves. There is a strain of fear and loathing for the "other" which goes back to our founding fathers. The elites who guided the nascent American republic through the Revolution and its formative years had very little respect for most of their countrymen, be they black or white. However, they used the prejudices of the majority white population to secure their own power.
Fast forward to the Civil War and reconstruction. The white planter class used the fear of working class whites of newly freed slaves to counter the efforts of northern republicans to lift the black population of the south.
tRump's present day rhetoric is an echo of that sorry era of American history. Yet working and middle class whites in America seem endlessly willing to swallow the demonization of their fellow Americans, even if it means voting for a mean spirited narcissist who cares not a fig for the problems which plague the white population. For those who say "we are not that kind of people", I beg to differ.
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