America's First White President: The Foundation of Trump’s Presidency is the Negation of Obama's

America's First White President is Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest article in the Atlantic. In this piece, Coates, arguably one of the greatest cultural critics in the US, writes about Donald Trump in the context of white supremacy in states, particularly after the nation's first black president, Barack Obama. The Trump presidency is a direct response to the Obama presidency, a blatant show of white supremacy, rather than class-based retaliation of the white working class than many pundits have deemed it as. 

"To Trump, whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies. The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch. But that is the point of white supremacy—to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification." Trump is only possible because of whiteness.

Voting statistics show that Trump was supported by whites across the economic gamut, from working class to the elite. The narrative that the election of Trump was due to ignored, poor whites is to absolve the culpability of other white people and to deflect to issues of class. Coates tells us, forcefully, that race still matters. It has always mattered. 

In this article, Coates gives us history, statistics, narrative, and cultural references in his usual style and measured grace. In telling us about the white underclass, the optimism of Obama, and the denial of liberal white media, he warns us that "The American tragedy now being wrought is larger than most imagine and will not end with Trump."