Ta-Nehisi Coates: Trump has 'taken the mask off' the GOP

[0:00] In the first year of Donald Trump's first term, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates described Trump [0:04] as the first white president. Every president prior to Obama was, of course, white. But in his [0:10] book, We Were Eight Years in Power, Coates wrote that Trump was, quote, the first president whose [0:14] entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president, end quote. Trump entered [0:20] politics on the back of baseless and racist birther conspiracies that Barack Obama was born [0:26] in Kenya, which then led people to describe him as a Kenyan-born Muslim, which is interesting to me [0:31] personally because I actually am a Kenyan-born Muslim and Obama was never at any of our meetings. [0:37] But that aside, Trump governed in a way that spoke to a white supremacist ethos built on a resentment [0:41] of Barack Obama and everything that he accomplished and represented. It marked the beginning of a [0:46] racist backsliding that Coates explicitly compares to redemption, which is the period beginning in [0:52] the late 1860s when post-Civil War Reconstruction was halted by former Confederates and their [0:58] sympathizers. They reclaimed power for the forces of white supremacy through racial terror, through [1:03] disenfranchisement, and through gerrymandering. Sound familiar? In fact, the title of the book, [1:09] We Were Eight Years in Power, refers not to the eight years of Obama's term, but to a phrase used by [1:16] Reconstruction-era black politicians as they mourned the loss of the advances that they had so briefly [1:23] gained. Since Trump has returned to office, the parallels to redemption are increasingly [1:28] unmistakable. Trump's second term thus far has taken on an even more unrestrained tenor that makes [1:34] the first one look conventional by comparison. And the politics of white backlash has gone from subtext [1:40] to primary message, not just for Trump, but for the GOP writ large. The Supreme Court has demolished [1:46] what was left of the Voting Rights Act, and one Republican-led Southern state after another [1:51] is redrawing the congressional districts to erase the political power of black people. [1:56] Writing for Mother Jones, the journalist Garrison Hayes writes that his colleague Ari Berman, [2:00] who covers voting rights, told him, quote, [2:02] We could see the largest drop in black representation since the end of Reconstruction. [2:08] It was 88 years from 1877, beginning of the redemption, to 1966, from the redemption to the [2:15] end of Reconstruction to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. We're a decade into the Trump era, [2:21] and as the midterm elections loom, Americans who cherish democracy are wondering how to ensure [2:25] that this new redemption does not last as long as the first. Joining me now is the award-winning [2:30] author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. He's a senior staff writer at Vanity Fair. He's the [2:34] author of several important books, including the aforementioned We Were Eight Years in Power. [2:39] Ta-Nehisi, great to see you again. Thank you for being with us. [2:42] Thank you. I'm sorry for doing this from a hotel room. Sorry, guys. [2:46] My pleasure to have you on wherever you're coming to us from. You saw Donald Trump and his iteration [2:52] of the GOP for what it has actually turned out to be earlier than a lot of people did. What currents [2:58] are you seeing now? Because I don't really want to be talking to you in nine years about what we [3:02] missed now. What should we be seeing now that we might be missing? You know, I have to say, [3:09] one of the things I've actually been encouraged by is the actual resistance to it and what is [3:14] happening on the left. I don't think I would have told you 10 years ago, well, I guess it's nine years [3:22] ago when I published that book, that you would have a socialist mayor of New York City, the largest city [3:27] in the world. You have another socialist mayor in the capital city of the country in Washington, [3:31] D.C., as it looks like it's about to happen. And you have another one challenging in L.A. [3:37] And I think, you know, foregoing any, you know, sort of endorsements of any of those candidates, [3:42] I think what is actually quite interesting is a kind of opening in the minds of a lot of people [3:49] of what it's going to take to resist. It's clear that things that, you know, were once off the table [3:55] are now on the table. That's interesting. So you that's an interesting framing, because a lot of [4:00] people think that this is a shift towards socialism with these democratic socialists being elected. [4:05] You're framing it perhaps as resistance, as the thing people, the tool that they have, the thing [4:09] they can do. Yeah, I think it's both. I think people are, you know, the imagination, the political [4:14] imagination is actually being opened opened up. And that's a good thing. And by focusing on that, [4:19] I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of other bad things that are happening. [4:21] There are, and they're very, very important, you know. But I think sometimes we miss the resistance [4:29] and the things that ultimately bear fruit 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years later. So everybody knows [4:35] it did not begin in 1954. Like, you know, you don't get Brown versus war in 1954. That's a very, [4:41] very old movement that eventually bears fruit. So everybody knows the Civil War and when it ended, [4:46] a slightly smaller number of people understand Reconstruction, and a much smaller people, [4:50] group of people understand redemption, right? The idea, the reclaiming of white supremacy and the [4:55] active nature of that. I mean, it really disappeared black people from Congress and from representation [5:01] in southern states. And it took until 1954 and then 1965 to gain back what looked like [5:08] representative democracy in America. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I think to your [5:13] point as to why people have not really comprehended the story of redemption is it is a very, very [5:20] depressing tale. Because what it says is for a very, very brief period, for a few years, you know, [5:26] we had one of the greatest, if not the greatest, I would say the greatest democratic experiment [5:31] in this country's history. That is multiracial democracy rooted in the South, which was not just [5:36] the empowerment of black political figures, but in fact, a fusion of black political figures and [5:42] white political figures infusing governments, cross-racial, trans-racial, and it was defeated [5:47] and the force that defeated it was white supremacy. How do you square Donald Trump's appeal to white [5:55] supremacy with the fact that he was reelected with greater margins among voters of color the second time [6:01] than he was the first time? It's not really that hard for me to square at all. White supremacy does [6:08] not act alone, you know, as a force. I think that is the first thing. And we have to remember, [6:15] and this is very uncomfortable to remember that, for instance, when Wade Hampton was running for [6:20] governor in South Carolina, who was a former Confederate general, I mean, the likes of people [6:24] like Martin Delaney supported him. Martin Delaney was black, you know? And so I think things that [6:29] are, you know, apparent or things that, you know, look crazy, you know, in hindsight do not [6:35] necessarily look crazy in the moment. Well, talking about things that look crazy in hindsight and don't [6:40] look crazy in the moment, the New York primaries are tomorrow. And it is remarkable the current [6:46] of U.S. support for Israel is a major current. I mean, and it's, by the way, a major current [6:53] between and amongst Jewish candidates. Many of the Jewish candidates in New York 10 and New York 12 [6:59] are Jewish, and they are debating these issues amongst themselves. Some of these debates take place [7:03] in synagogues. What do you make of the fact that this is such a central current now within the [7:09] Democratic Party? What I make of it is that the thing that plagues our era has made it difficult [7:16] to hide. And in other words, the thing that is, you know, probably what I consider a complete menace [7:21] has also been a blessing, and that is social media. And what social media has meant is it's really, [7:28] really difficult to hide what has happened in Gaza, what is happening in the West Bank, [7:33] and the fact that this is underwritten by American dollars, by our tax dollars, that we are [7:38] participants in not just genocide, but genocide in support of apartheid. And the clarity of that, [7:44] the clarity of that evidence can no longer be hidden with catchphrases like, do you believe [7:49] Israel has a right to exist? Israel has the right to defend itself? These kind of, you know, [7:53] platitudes that have been used over and over again. When you see actual video of people burning alive, [7:59] when you see actual pictures of children, when you when you hear about Gaza, and the plague of rats [8:04] that is, you know, descended, you know, because there's so many dead people buried under the road, [8:08] these are real things that are actually happening. And I think it's becoming increasingly hard to [8:12] ignore. Okay, hard to ignore. But that doesn't mean that people's hearts haven't hardened and that [8:16] people are open to changing their minds on things. I mean, since you and I last talked about this, [8:22] people get into their corners now on everything, and in particular on this issue. [8:25] They do. They do. They do. They do. But if you look at the polling, it's pretty clear where the [8:30] base of the Democratic Party is moving. You know, and I think that is owed to a long [8:35] movement waged by Palestinian people themselves, particularly in this country, Palestinian [8:40] Americans to bring this issue to the greater consciousness of the American people. And I guess [8:47] I'm feeling optimistic tonight, because I want to give that movement its props. You know, [8:51] I think it's important to do that, you know, even amidst the darkness, you know, the fact that you [8:56] actually have a Brad Lander, you know, openly, you know, defying, you know, and openly, you know, [9:03] opening this debate in the Jewish community. I just don't think that was possible 10 years ago. [9:06] And I definitely don't think it was possible 15 years ago. And so I think even in, you know, [9:11] this dark and desperate time, you know, you really are seeing the effects of resistance movements. [9:15] I want to ask you about this animus that you described about Donald Trump to Barack Obama. [9:21] A lot of that was personal. It was mean. It was personal. It was derogatory. It was racist. [9:27] Is there a separation between Donald Trump and what the Republican Party is and will become? [9:33] In other words, the next guy may just not have that animus. How much of this is driven by Donald [9:37] Trump's actual personal animus toward toward Barack Obama? A lot of it. But like, I would say that [9:46] the latent racism of the Republican Party, which has been there since the Southern strategy, [9:54] was the kindling and Trump just lit the flame. But it's always been there. It's always been there. [9:58] You know, like I talk about this in the piece that I have in very fair. There is a tendency to see [10:04] Trump as this kind of, you know, deviance from American tradition, American policy. Likewise, [10:11] there's a tendency to see Trump as this kind of, you know, departure from what Republicans [10:15] previously have been. But he's not. What he's done is taking the mask off. Trump is vulgar. [10:21] That's the real difference. He's vulgar. But if you look really, really closely, I mean, you can [10:26] see, you know, it's not, it wasn't very hard, for instance, for Trump to convince the Republican [10:31] base of birth to risk. That was not a difficult sell, you know? And I think we know why. [10:37] Ta-Nehisi, good to see you again. Thank you for joining us. We always appreciate it. We hope [10:40] you'll come back. Ta-Nehisi Coats.