Summary

Coates opens his essay with the provocative thesis that not only did Donald Trump win the 2016 because he was white but that Trump is the first white president because he explicitly used white supremacy to gain the White House. Coates presents Trump's prior public life—his housing discrimination against blacks, support for execution of the wrongly accused Central Park Five, employment discrimination in his casinos, and birtherism—as evidence that Trump does have an ideology, and that it is white supremacy (342). His racial signaling—elevating white nationalist Steve Bannon, coziness with Russia, which also espouses white nationalist beliefs—is intentionally designed to appeal to white supremacists, according to Coates (542-543).

Coates first makes his case by comparing the old white supremacy to "an ancient talsiman" and Trump's to a "a glowing amulet" Trump has cracked open, "releasing its...