For months, Donald Trump’s racism and sexism have served as Exhibit A in the case against his fitness for the presidency. In spite of Reid’s remark, the press has made Trump’s bigotry very clear, publishing countless articles, explanatory timelines, and listicles on the topic. And yet, on Tuesday, the American people went to the polls and made racist Donald Trump their president-elect. How could this happen?People like me—members of a desperate and discombobulated coastal elite—have floated a number of different explanations for this outcome. Maybe Americans don’t mind that Trump is racist because we’re racist, too. We live in a racist, sexist country, and Trump has given the racists and the sexists the chance to vote their true beliefs. But what about all the counties and states that went for Trump after having voted Barack Obama into office? Maybe Americans are more sexist than they are racist, in the end, and their votes for Trump were really votes against Hillary Clinton. A third explanation blames white women for the outcome, given that a majority of them voted for Trump in spite of his misogyny. Or perhaps it’s the case that millions of people—including, for example, the third of Latino voters who lined up for Trump—are living in a world built from outright lies and fake news reports from Macedonia. Perhaps these people didn’t know, or would not believe, the truth of what Trump has said and done. They failed to understand that he’s a racist pig, and so they elected him.
