University of Maryland Professor James G. Gimpel's race and ethnicity analysis of the 2016 presidential campaign and election produced several important conclusions, among them: "Approaching the 2016 election, immigration policy polarized opinion by partisan identity more than at any other time in contemporary history" and "Election surveys suggest that immigration policy opinion was responsible for moving crossover voters to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, improving his performance over Mitt Romney in 2012."

The 2016 election results demonstrate the high level of party racialization. Trump edged Hillary Clinton with 306 electoral votes against 232. If we were to count only the votes of non-whites, Clinton could have run the table, with all 538 electoral votes; if we were to count only votes cast by white Americans, Clinton could have carried only 169 electoral votes to Trump's 369. Counting only non-college educated whites — the "undereducated" President Trump says he loves — Clinton could have won only six states (and half of Maine), totaling 64 electoral votes. A few days after the 2016 election, Perry Bacon Jr. wrote that "Whites without college degrees voted like an ethnic bloc."

Even the undereducated can see the simple mathematical formula: The larger the immigrant and ethnic minority population, the more eligible voters from those groups; and because they tend to vote Democratic, the more they vote, the lower the chances of Republicans winning.

A total of over 23 million immigrants and 32 million Latinos are eligible to vote in 2020; thirty million African Americans are eligible.

A System That No Longer Works for One Party

During the Antebellum, Democratic politicians, particularly Southerners, witnessed demographic shifts that pointed to growing northern electoral power and translated into an expanding majority of free states vis-a-vis slave states. These circumstances produced increasing frustration that historian Robert E. May used to explain growing Southern belligerence, including a wave of filibustering and the eventual Civil War.

Behind that frustration was a growing sense that the national electoral system no longer worked for white Southerners.

Today's national electoral system, with its increasing number of minority and foreign-born voters, no longer works for a Republican Party whose ideology, actions (and inactions), and rhetoric regarding such groups have escalated from neglect to open hostility.

In the aftermath of former President Obama's reelection in 2012, Republican leaders, campaign managers and pundits spoke much about the need to expand the party's tent by making its platform and candidates more appealing to minority and immigrant voters.

What sounded like a logical and necessary strategy, however, clashed against the reality of an increasingly anti-diversity and anti-immigration Republican Party base.

Trump's strategy was actually the opposite: to further alienate minorities and immigrants with the goal of energizing and mobilizing a white, mostly rural, mostly non-college educated and mostly male political base.

It worked for Trump because of Hillary Clinton's trust deficit and because of a finely targeted strategy that delivered Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. While no one can estimate how many red votes resulted from Russian interference, the truth is that Russians engaged in a massive, precisely targeted disinformation campaign that likely made a difference in those three states and others. The equation is simple: Political propaganda, regardless of its origin, influences people; if not, why would candidates spend so many millions in advertising?

Most Republicans have thus resorted to turning a blind eye to continuing Russian efforts to sow divisions, hurt Democratic nominee Joe Biden's image and undermine democracy. Some Republicans are pursuing multiple strategies to suppress and dilute Black and Latino votes through gerrymandering, intimidation, misinformation, legislation that makes it harder for people to vote and outright fraud, as was evident in 2018 in North Carolina's 9th Congressional District.

Come November 2020, if demographics and democracy are allowed to follow their course, Trump — as virtually all polls suggest — will lose reelection. However, the winds of voter suppression, renewed outside interference, an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic and shenanigans at the Postal Service may make it work for Trump one more time.

Either way, once the results are in, racial, ethnic, gender, geographical, cultural and partisan hostilities will intensify, as in November 1860. Given Trump's record of denouncing rigged elections and mass electoral fraud, and his persistent calls for political violence, it is hard to imagine the scenario of a dignified concession and exit from power. Blood will be spilled, not between two armies but in a low-intensity conflict that could last years. May my historian's intuition fail me this time.

Readers can reach Luis Martinez-Fernandez at LMF_Column@yahoo.com. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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