A new poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has found that the majority of Americans think Trump is racist. Many black people have been saying this since the day he was nominated, but actual statistics never hurt either.
According to the poll, 57 percent of all adults think that the president is racist.
When breaking down respondents by race, NORC and the AP found that 80 percent of black people, 75 percent of Latinxs and nearly 50 percent of white people think Trump is racist. Perceptions of the president were found to hew closely to party affiliation; 85 percent of Democrats said Trump is racist, but only 21 percent of Republicans said the same.
The poll also found that nearly half of Americans believe that race relations have worsened since Trump took office.
“Everybody appears to have gotten angry and they are looking at each other differently,” said Terri Jordan, 58, a black resident of Washington, D.C., “I think that’s just a bad thing. We can’t progress that way.”
1,337 adults participated in the survey, with responses taken from February 15-19, 2018. The sampling of respondents reflected the U.S population, according to the AP.
Beyond the question of the president's feelings about race, pollsters also discovered these interesting facts:
- 73 percent of Democrats believe Trump has been harmful to the African American community.
- 14 percent of Republicans believe Trump has been harmful to the African American community.
- 79 percent of black people believe they face disadvantages to getting ahead in the U.S.
- 44 percent of white people believe they face disadvantages to getting ahead in the U.S.
- 26 percent of Americans believe race makes no difference in getting ahead.
One Houston resident, Ralph Loud, 68, said that conditions for African American will not change as long as Trump is in the office.
“He makes my blood boil because of the things he does and the things he says,” said Loud. “We ain’t going to get better as a country. We need new leadership.”
Trump has often been accused of being racist, in part due to his reaction to the events in Charlottesville, where he blamed "both sides" for the violence, and for allegedly calling African nations "sh*thole countries."
For his part however, the president has said multiple times that he is "the least racist person."