President Donald Trump planned to run for reelection on a strong economy. Instead, he’s facing tens of thousands of deaths and mass unemployment. But Trump has another theme he can run on, and he’s already using it: white anxiety. His latest campaign ad frames the coronavirus crisis as a battle against China. The ad accuses former Vice President Joe Biden of siding with Beijing, and it shows Gary Locke, the Chinese American former governor of Washington, standing between Chinese flags—a reminder that Trump often conflates ancestry with national allegiance. Trump has also revived talk of drug cartels, migrant caravans, and “strong borders.” On April 1, when a reporter asked him about domestic violence, Trump thought the question was about his message of the day. “Mexican violence?” the president asked.
If Trump runs a campaign of nationalism and ethnic fear, as he has done before, he’ll have a sympathetic propagandist at his side. Last week, he appointed Kayleigh McEnany, his campaign’s spokeswoman, as the new White House press secretary. McEnany has a long record of defending Trump’s smears. She has joked about President Barack Obama’s birthplace, lied about Trump golfing after a terrorist murder, and claimed that when Trump said “Grab ’em by the pussy,” his preface—“they let you do it”—“implies consent.” But McEnany’s most remarkable performance came in 2016, when then-candidate Trump denounced U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel—who was presiding over a fraud case against Trump University—as “Mexican.” To protect Trump, McEnany insisted that even overt racism wasn’t racist. Her appointment as press secretary shows how low the White House is willing to go.
Like other Republicans, McEnany decided it was more important to stick with Trump than to renounce him, even after he flaunted his ethnic resentments. And Republicans are still with him, despite further racist outbursts. But McEnany goes further. She redefines bigotry so that even flagrant attacks—banning Muslims, disqualifying Latino judges, impugning the patriotism of Chinese Americans—can be excused. If you’re willing to defend such things, it hardly matters whether you call yourself a bigot.