A debate and a rally show Trump’s closing strategy: Tapping into the white grievance of his political bubble

DULUTH, Minn. — President Trump’s failure to forcefully condemn white supremacists during this week’s debate has left even some of his staunch Republican allies urging him to correct course.

Not Bo Ernst.

As the president flew into this city on the shores of Lake Superior for his first post-debate rally, the white retiree from North Mankato was waiting to celebrate him. Ernst, 61, arrived in a pickup truck spray-painted with crossed-out phrases like “BLM” and “woke." He said he was glad that Trump had denounced racial sensitivity training as fundamentally racist during the debate.

“They’re telling the white kids to kneel down in front of the Black kids and beg for forgiveness,” Ernst said, inaccurately describing programming that teaches people about implicit racial biases. “I don’t think so. We have nothing to forgive.”

On Wednesday night, Air Force One touched down on an airfield as the Village People’s “Macho Man” boomed over the speakers. Trump emerged to bask in the wild cheers of supporters and once again leaned into the politics of white grievance.

Trump touted his efforts to limit low-income housing in the suburbs and teach “pro-American” lessons in schools, and attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis, a Somali refugee and an American citizen, as the crowd chanted “lock her up.”

“She tells us how to run our country. Can you believe it?” Trump said.

The back-to-back spectacles of the debate and the rally highlighted a key component, along with voter fraud allegations, of the closing strategy of Trump’s reelection campaign: Hammer home a message about racial division that appeals powerfully to the people inside his political bubble and ignore the shifts in public opinion that made doing so a liability on the national stage Tuesday night.

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