Here is Trump yesterday:
I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020
A few thoughts:
- What does Trump mean by “bothered?”
- There is a long history of this kind of rhetoric. I wrote about it in this post.
- My colleagues at Messiah University offered some good historical context in this op-ed.
- Does this tweet also apply to the millions of white working class and poor who voted for Trump in 2016?
- Read Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.
- On the suburbs I still like Kenneth Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier: The Surbanization of the United States.
- I also recommend Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism