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WASHINGTON Remember when pundits hailed the election of Barack Obama as the beginning of a post-racial America?

After the election of Donald Trumpto the presidency, it seems like a distant memory. But in 2008, it was the prevailing wisdom among political commentators.

Cornell Belcher, a long-time Democratic pollster who worked on both of Obamas presidential campaigns, started seeing through the mirage of racial harmony well before Trumps election made it obvious. In Belchers book, A Black Man in the White House: Barack Obama and the Triggering of Americas Racial-Aversion Crisis, released weeks ahead of Trumps election, he presents years of research showing that white resentment grew steadily under Obama.

He too had hoped Obamas presidency would usher in a period of post-racial politics. But in his public opinion research in the ensuing eight years, he told HuffPost on Thursday, he saw a rise in racial aversion ... which accumulated in a sort of perfect storm for a candidate like Donald Trump.

To measure racial aversion, Belcher surveyed peoples responses to a range of questions ... from affirmative action questions to government doing too much for people of color, to people of color not being as patriotic.

The answers, collected over the course of eight years, showed a hardening of white attitudes toward people of color. Belcher attributes that trend not just to Obama, but to the rising coalition of communities of color that elected Obama.

Obama won reelection with just 39 percent of the white vote nationwide, not just by turning out more people of color, but also by taking advantage of the fact that the country simply had more voting-age people of color to turn out, Belcher noted. The changes that made that victory possible scared many of the white voters who went on to vote for Trump, according to the pollster.

Trump is a George Wallace-like historical figure. The difference is that George Wallace could not win the Republican primary. He couldnt win the nomination and become president, Belcher said.

But Donald Trump could, because now, with the rise of really, not Obama, but the Obama coalition, the wolf is now at the door, he continued. And what I mean by the wolf is at the door is, I mean America is going through dramatic shifts, demographic shifts.

Now Belcher is warning against Democratic analysts who see a message of economic empowerment alone as the key to rebuilding the party.

[The country is] only going to get browner, so we have to solve for this, or we lose the future, he concluded. And again, thats not pointing fingers at so many working-class whites, who, you know what, their world has changed, and the changes that are happening in our country, in this country, are stark. And we shouldnt be surprised that some people are uneasy about it. But we should have that conversation about that unease, and a prescription about that unease that doesnt pit us against each other.

Original post:
How The Racist Backlash To Barack Obama Gave Us Donald Trump - Huffington Post