Let Trump speak

I have no doubt where Donald Trump and his support come from: the residue of racist white America, which did not disappear just because Barack Obama was elected president:

*Measuring Trump support as Mr. Trump’s percentage of the primary vote times the Republican share of the two-party vote in the 2012 presidential election.

Their relative numbers and influence are shrinking, but they have good reason to complain: average lower middle class incomes have not risen in inflation-adjusted terms for 47 years:

But rather than make common cause with the black lower middle class that has suffered the same fate, Trump’s whites are doing what comes naturally: resenting the competition and supporting a white demagogue who promises little but expresses their agony well. For those of us who remember George Wallace, this is no surprise. The racism this time around is more coded and less deadly (at least so far), but no less virulent.

The right response, however, is not violence. Trump’s minions and the local police will always have the upper hand if demonstrations against him turn in that direction. A melee does nothing to counter Trump’s message. In fact, it helps to reinforce the feeling that whites need protection, which is why he has encouraged his supporters to react violently to demonstrators against him.

Nor does it help to try to prevent him from speaking. Trump’s message is odious. But he is entitled to express it. This young man, who stormed the stage in Chicago in an effort to prevent Trump from speaking, is wrong:

Those who oppose Trump’s message need to remember Martin Luther King’s: nonviolence will serve the cause far better than violence. People calling me names cannot be a motive for attacking them physically or preventing them from speaking. Apart from their constitutional rights, that will only consolidate Trump’s support and make people in the middle wonder which side they belong on. Undecided people are not going to sign up to what they see as thuggery. Silent, nonviolent witness against him will be far more successful in bringing people around.

I am confident that Trump if nominated can be made to go down to an ignominious defeat in November. That will do far more to end American racism than even the election of President Obama. But that defeat is far more likely if he is allowed to speak than if he is prevented from doing so by demonstrators seen as radical and unreasonable.

What does all this have to do with foreign policy, war and peace? It is only by defeating Trump, either in the primaries or in the election, that America can begin to repair the damage he has done to her image abroad.