Throughout his campaign, Trump has attempted to portray himself as an anti-establishment outsider in order to appeal to ordinary, working class Americans. Some of this is due to his focus on economic policies like trade and protectionism, but much of it is also centered around “America first” anti-immigration rhetoric. Trump’s claim that Mexico “is not sending their best…they’re criminals, they’re rapists” is clearly an attempt to appeal to working class people who have anxiety about illegal immigrants. Much of this is due a belief among some Americans that jobs are being lost to illegal immigrants – much of the concern about illegal immigrants stems from economic anxiety, not racism. Though his comment might still be considered bigoted, the concerns of his supporters aren’t necessarily bigoted as well. The anti-immigration and America-first rhetoric seems to be targeting poor and middle class whites. These issues are the cornerstone of his campaign, and he is polling extremely well among these groups.
Another area in which Trump’s rhetoric targets the working class is through criticism of NAFTA, where he insists that we are losing jobs not just to Mexican illegal immigrants, but Mexico itself. In the debate that took place the night of the writing of this blog, he brought up how NAFTA “ruined the inner cities.” He tied trade deals like NAFTA to the economic plight of poor and middle class African-Americans. He is doing very poorly with black voters – at one point, he was receiving 0% of the black vote in some states. His criticism of NAFTA as harming inner cities (which he ties to Hillary Clinton because her husband Bill passed it) is an attempt to appeal to poor and middle-class blacks.
The anti-NAFTA and anti-immigration rhetoric can be seen as targeting different races on different issues, but what’s clear is that Trump is using both of these rhetorical strategies to target working class voters, blacks and whites alike.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-gets-0-support-black-voters-ohio-pennsylvania-nbc-n609026
I think your blog post really brings up an important point that Trump is not just trying to appeal to the white working class, which we usually assume, but also to the black working class. I feel that no matter what he tries to say though, he won’t gain the support of African Americans because of his other comments about them. I have heard many criticisms of Trump from African Americans on how he always links inner city issues with blacks. I think what they are saying is that Trump is making an over-generalization. I think that you are right that Trump is targeting both races, but I think Trump is succeeding with one and failing with the other.