But it does exhibit a form of benign racism too many Americans share, even some who’s family roots quite recently originated in Southern or Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia. (Most African Americans have been American since colonial days). Except for the Indian Nations, or the pre-19th century Mexican population of the western USA, the blacks are the most American of us all.

By “benign racism” I mean a gentler form of racism that seems to be endemic to white Americans, particularly those of N European descent. It is a racism that does not express itself as cross-burning or church bombing, lynchings or Jim Crow and segregation. Thankfully, I think we are beyond that now. The benign racism I speak of may not even be recognized as such by those who express it.

It is a racism that is somehow blind to the fact that their tribe, the now-dominant cohort in N America, is only a fairly recent historical aberration, one that natural population movements will dilute to insignificance within just a few more generations. In fact, that process is already well underway, its what Trump’s constituency is all about. This tribe is gradually but perceptibly being absorbed into the population, just like the New York Dutch, the Louisiana Cajuns and the Minnesota Scandinavians. In another century, their major legacy will be a few quaint British town names scattered around the Eastern states, like Spanish place names now survive in the West.

This inability to think historically and culturally is a peculiarly American phenomenon, probably due to our geographic isolation from our parent European civilization. I’ll give you an example of how it works. When I lived in California, one of my colleagues was a proud native of St. Louis, MO. He was singing the praises of his home town, which (among other things) boasted the “first Catholic Church West of the Mississippi River”. (No doubt a boast of his hometown Chamber of Commerce or Tourist Board.)

He was absolutely stunned when I pointed out that there were Catholic Missions established by the Spanish and Mexicans all over the American West long before America gained its independence from Britain. There was an entire Spanish speaking civilization here. He must have known this, of course, living in an area studded with towns with names like San Jose, Monterey, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Milpitas, Alameda, Sausalito, Tiburon and so on.

He knew this, of course, but it hadn’t really registered as significant to him. When I pointed it out he even blurted out without thinking “Oh, but that’s different.” Yeah, I know, they weren’t REAL “white” Americans, or at least not in his eyes.

No, I’m not saying this man was a malicious bigot, I knew him well and he certainly wasn’t (actually, he was Jewish!). He was just blind to what (to me at least) was an obvious and unavoidable consequence of being American. We are a multitude. This should not be threatening to anyone. It should be reassuring to all of us.

And I’d be willing to bet that the demographic cohorts most likely to meet her criterion for suffrage would be Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. The ancestors of most in those communities were already well established populations here in 1776. Trump wouldn’t have a chance.