How Can the Democratic Party Confront Racist Backlash? White Grievance in Hemispheric Perspective

Abstract

In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, a contentious debate has ensued in the Democratic Party, and in the U.S. left more generally, about whether Trump’s victory was the result of racist and white nationalist appeals or was powered by an economically anxious and forgotten white working class left behind by globalization. From a Latin American perspective, this U.S. debate about the relative salience of race and class is strikingly familiar. After decades of denying the existence of racism, Latin America experienced a historic expansion of rights for black and indigenous peoples during a “left turn” that coincided with the expansion of social welfare policies, quickly followed by a “right turn” fueled by racist backlash. Thus, taking a hemispheric vantage point reveals that it would be a mistake to believe that class appeals alone are sufficient to counter the current politics of right-wing racist backlash.