Donald J. Trump’s anti-immigrant message is exposing longstanding tensions and challenging Democrats’ hopes for solidarity.
In the Democratic imagination, “people of color” is a unifying term, a label for a durable coalition of Black and Latino voters, as well as Asian Americans, Arab Americans and Native Americans.
Donald J. Trump is showing just how imaginary that unity might be.
For months, the Trump campaign and its allies have effectively exploited divisions and bigotry within minority communities, pitting them against immigrants and each other.
Mr. Trump’s social media posts warn Black and Latino voters that immigrants are coming for their jobs. His promises to save cities that have been “invaded and conquered” are a feature of his rallies, including Sunday’s in New York, a city where politicians have long stoked racial divisions to win elections.
In many ways, these appeals to Black and Latino voters are not markedly different than those aimed at white voters: Your problems can be blamed on illegal immigration. Lack of affordable housing? Stagnant wages? Struggling schools? Urban crime? Mass deportation is a single, seemingly simple, solution, the argument goes.
The us-versus-them framing has long characterized political alliances, across the ideological spectrum. But Mr. Trump has been more far more direct than any recent presidential candidate in inviting Black and Latino voters to be part of the “us,” so long as they acknowledge that there is a “them.”
In one of the Trump campaign’s most widely broadcast Spanish-language television ads, attacking Ms. Harris for her support of transgender medical care for immigrants, it closes with “Kamala Harris is with them. President Trump is with us.”
