Speaking on a hot, windy afternoon during a visit to the fracking fields of west Texas last month, Donald Trump conjured an ominous vision of suburban America under siege: terrorized by rising crime and threatened by the development of low-income housing in their neighborhoods.
“It’s been hell for suburbia,” Trump declared, touting his decision to rescind an Obama-era fair-housing rule to combat racial segregation in the suburbs, as part of his promise to preserve what he called their “Suburban Lifestyle Dream”. To the scattered crowd in attendance, he added: “So, enjoy your life, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your life.”
Nearly 500 miles east, in a diversifying suburb of Houston, Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni is running to represent a congressional district that is worlds apart from the one that exists in Trump’s imagination.
Texas’ 22nd congressional district, which is almost as big as the size of Rhode Island and nearly as populous, is so diverse that his campaign is distributing literature in 21 languages. Protests against police brutality and racial discrimination spread throughout the region after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died under the knee of a white Minneapolis police. And Floyd, a native of Houston, was laid to rest in the district.
“This is new Texas,” said Kulkarni, a former diplomat who grew up in Houston. “It’s diverse, it’s educated, it’s dynamic.”
And it’s not only Texas. From Atlanta to Phoenix, this pattern is part of a longterm political realignment of the suburbs that has been dramatically accelerated by Trump’s presidency.
Once cornerstones of the Republican coalition, these densely populated metropolitan suburbs are turning increasingly Democratic. At the same time, the more sparsely populated exurban areas have become even more deeply Republican, countering, for now, Democrats’ gains elsewhere in the suburbs.
Until now, Trump has appeared uninterested in persuading these swing voters back, alienating them further with the inflammatory rhetoric and hardline views on race and cultural heritage that excite his base.
But mounting backlash among suburban voters to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his attempts to stoke racial grievance have imperiled the president’s re-election prospects and put his party at risk of being shut out of power in Congress.
Trump is promoting a vision of America’s suburbs that no longer exists
In recent weeks, Trump has sought to appeal, with little subtlety, to suburban voters. In one tweet, he vowed to protect “the Suburban Housewives of America” from the threat posed by his Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.
In a play to the perceived racist fears of white suburban voters, he wrote: “I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.”
Demographers and political strategists say Trump is promoting a vision of America’s suburbs with aproned housewives, leafy cul-de-sacs and picket fences that no longer exists.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
