[Ilya Somin] How Trump strengthens the forces of political correctness

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters in San Diego, California, U.S. May 27, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Many of Donald Trump’s defenders love his attacks on “political correctness” and see him as a champion of the struggle against PC-ism. It is indeed true that Trump often fulminates against PC, describing almost anything he opposes as a product of it. But, in reality, he’s exacerbating the very problem he claims to decry.

Political correctness feeds on the perception that right of center political views are really just a cover for racism, ethnic bias, religious bigotry, and sexism. If conservatives and libertarians are really just promoters of white supremacy, there is no reason to take them seriously, and little will be lost if their views are suppressed by speech codes, safe zones, and the like.

That perception is massively reinforced when Trump does things like call Hispanic immigrants “killers” and “rapists,” claim that a Mexican-American judge’s ethnicity should disqualify him from hearing a case involving Trump University, call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, advocate the massacre of innocent relatives of suspected Muslim terrorists, and generally indulge in rhetoric that differs little from that of David Duke.

If the alternative to political correctness is Trumpism, then most people of good will are likely to pick the former – not just minorities, but also many whites who oppose bigotry. By winning the GOP nomination and becoming the leader of the main right of center party, Trump has already dealt a blow to the struggle against PC. To the extent conservatives have embraced him, they validate the PC left’s claim that they are at best indifferent to bigotry and at worst active supporters of it.

If Trump actually wins the presidency in November, the problem will get worse. Whether we like it or not, a GOP president almost inevitably becomes the most visible face of the political right, even if some right-wingers continue to oppose him. In the same way, President Obama has become the face of the left, even if some left-wingers dislike some of his policies. And if the most visible face of the right is an open advocate of bigotry, that can only strengthen political correctness. It will be perceived – in part, even correctly – as a validation of much that PC leftists have been saying for years.

There is also a second, more subtle, way in which Trumpism promotes PC-ism. Like the PC left, Trump views the world as a zero-sum game: Americans can only gain by being “winners” in competition with foreigners; progress for white workers require shutting out Hispanic immigrants, and so on. Such zero-sum thinking is not just a campaign ploy; it is at the heart of Trump’s entire world-view, since long before he ran for president. And it will surely be a major influence on what he does in the White House.

Trump’s advocacy of zero-sum identity politics for whites is the mirror image of the identity politics of the PC far left. Both assume that minority groups can only really prosper at the expense of whites, and vice versa. The growth of zero-sum identity politics on one side of the ethnoracial divide naturally strengthens it on the other, as well.

Some conservatives and libertarians may think that there is no need to abjure Trumpist nastiness, because PC leftists will hate us regardless of what we do. From the standpo