The reason I oppose Trump is the very reason Trump has any headroom to run for office. The people supporting Trump aren’t solely racists, and anybody who thinks it’s just racists should pay more attention. More importantly, racism isn’t some social disease. It arises from very specific conditions, just like Trump himself has.
Those conditions are ones of apparent marginalization of a formerly privileged group. Of apparent loss of income and mobility. And so on. In other words, the undereducated white men that support Trump feel trod upon. Some of them may be racist, but most are just scared of losing out.
That’s why the whole “Stop Trump” movement, facing down a beast of its own creation, sounds a bit out of tune to me. You don’t defeat racism with a fist. You defeat it with a smile and a helping hand (same way you defeat most other social problems). The government has an empathy problem: if you can’t muster lobbyists, the government doesn’t give a damn about you.
So Trump is now lobbying for all those folks, because there’s a loophole in the Constitution: the people, including undereducated white males, elect the government.
Historically, a large share of Trump’s voters would have been helped by the Democrats. That all changed in the 1960s, when the Democrats moved to help black folks in the civil rights movement. The Trump folks all migrated to the Republicans, who continued to not give a damn about their real problems and mainly focused on social issues to win their votes.
The Democrats continued to not do much for the Trumpites. For one thing, they’ve had to struggle to push their agenda against the Republicans, and since Trumpites didn’t vote D, they had no quarter on the D agenda.
But sooner or later such a bloc will tend to foster movement.
To stop Trump, the platform has to be inclusive. The safety net has to be strengthened and lengthened and broadened. Those poor dumb crackers need some help, too.
The Republicans won’t do that, of course. Trump voters by-and-large lack the main attribute the Rs care for: deep pockets. That leaves the Democrats to fight harder to help people who vote against them. Of course, that would eliminate the Trump problem, but would also make the Rs more competitive.
In that, the Democrats have a free-rider problem. The Rs need the Ds to be their welfare sugar daddy, taking their trash out while they sit on the couch and yell about how they want the trash left alone. It is a conundrum.
Main point being, sure, tirade against his racism, pull whatever stop Trump rabbits out of all the hats in world, but for God’s sake, also address the problems that allow a Trump to even exist. Fix the broken employment system. The broken healthcare system. The broken immigration system. Fix it all. Anything less, and you might scare away the Trump, but there will always be another one lurking, ready to try to steal a system that doesn’t give a damn.