Critics warn Black voters about Trump’s ‘anti-white racism’ agenda if elected back into office

A potential second Trump administration will reportedly seek to undo equity programs aimed at addressing generations of discrimination against Black and brown Americans.

Democratic strategists are sounding the alarm for Black voters after a report indicated that if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump returns to the White House, his allies and longtime aides will prioritize policies concerning “anti-white racism.”

According to Axios, a potential second Trump administration will seek to undo equity programs aimed at addressing generations of discrimination against Black and brown Americans, including decades-old federal programs and recent programs established by President Joe Biden. 

“I wish I could say this report is shocking, but frankly, the Trump campaign has been nothing but consistent in their defense of white supremacy and extremist policies,” Jamarr Brown, executive director of Color of Change PAC, told theGrio. “Trump’s candidacy has always been wholly focused on creating a more hostile world for Black people while dismantling any and all pre-existing protections for Black communities.”

In a manifesto known as Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank advised by former Trump presidential transition team director Johnny McEntee, lays out a conservative agenda for a hypothetical second Trump administration. 

The nearly 900-page guide includes policy directives like ending what it calls “affirmative discrimination,” including diversity, inclusion, and equity programs that it claims are “vehicles” for “unlawful discrimination.” In other words, the screed implies equity programs under Biden and previous administrations are discriminatory against white people. 

In March 2023, Trump slammed President Biden’s executive order establishing an equity lens across the entire federal government, calling it a “Marxist concept.” If elected in November, the former Republican president vowed he would “get this extremism out of the White House, out of the military, out of the Justice Department, and out of our government.” 

“As Trump and his allies plan to dismantle ‘anti-white’ racism, we must really underline the true disparities in our system that demand federal protections for Black people,” said Brown of Color of Change PAC. 

The former Texas Democratic Party executive director rejected Trump-aligned figures who suggest federal systems rooted in equity are “broken” because “they were never built to work for all communities and people in the first place.” 

“Our spaces of learning, our economy, our criminal legal systems, and our electoral systems, were all designed to work exclusively for the white and the wealthy,” he added. 

The concept of anti-white racism has already found success in high-profile legal battles, some of which have been forged by Trump allies and advisors. 

In 2021, a Texas judge ruled against the Biden administration’s $29 billion COVID-19-era restaurant relief program intended for women and minority-owned businesses under the grounds that it was discriminatory against a white male restaurant owner. The plaintiff in that case was represented by America First Legal Foundation, a conservative litigation firm founded by Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House aide.

The legal argument in the Texas case centered on the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which says that no state shall deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The clause was historically used in landmark cases that ended racial segregation in schools, upheld race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions, and protected the voting rights of Black Americans. 

Now, conservative litigants are winning legal cases under the same 14th Amendment clause on behalf of white citizens, claiming to be harmed by programs intended to undo generational inequities impacting Black communities. To date, the equal protection clause has been used to successfully end President Biden’s debt relief program for Black farmers and force the Minority Business Development Agency to open its programs to white businesses as opposed to disadvantaged communities. 

The 14th Amendment clause was also used to overturn race-based affirmative action, which was decided by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court and made possible by President Trump’s three nominees. 

Reecie Colbert, a Democratic strategist and commentator, told theGrio that the Project 2025 agenda and legal cases undoing equity programs designed to address racial disparities impacting Black and brown communities is an “opening salvo to what we would see under a Trump administration.”

“They are trying to make us second-class citizens [and] bring us back to the Jim Crow era,” said Colbert, who warned Black voters that “our citizenship is on the ballot in 2024.” She added, “I don’t know that it’s sunk in quite yet just how dire things are.”

Colbert argued that even the Supreme Court ruling to overturn President Biden’s student loan debt relief program, which was designed to benefit Black and brown borrowers, and Republican-led efforts to end DEI programs are connected to this larger aim to undo any progress at addressing racial disparities in wealth, education and business.  

“They’re doing it because … it’s making progress. And really, DEI is a pretext for attacking racial equality,” she said. “The same way that CRT [Critical Race Theory] was a pretext for attacking history being taught even at the elementary school level.”

Antjuan Seawright, a longtime Democratic strategist, told theGrio that if the agenda of Trump and his allies becomes a reality, it will totally “send us full steam backward.”

“Just the idea being floated of this kind of strategy or plan should be a friendly reminder to everyone but, in particular, Black folk, that progress is not permanent.” He added, “It’s an ongoing fight, and it is to be solidified daily.”

Brown of Color of Change PAC said this year’s election will be critical in determining “how Black communities advance across the country” and that the recent reporting about what Trump aims to do if elected back into office should be a “wake-up call for voters.” 

“Not only for progressives to organize with a deeper understanding of what a Trump administration means for our movement but also for those voters who have never cast a blue ballot,” he said.  

“This report makes it even more clear that a Trump White House can not be held accountable to our communities,” Brown added. “A huge part of the power of our movement for racial justice is our ability to guide decision-makers toward reform policies and hold them accountable for obstructing justice for Black people. This will not be possible if Trump’s white supremacist platform is given another term.”

The Biden-Harris campaign came out swinging against Trump’s anticipated agenda to undo equity policies across the federal government. 

“He’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder,” said former U.S. Congressman Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign. 

“Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term, they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.”

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