Donald Trump is so dependent on racial and ethnic antagonism that without it, he would be a marginal figure, relegated to the sidelines.

Trump’s constant demonization of Black people and immigrants has inured the public to the fact that he is the first — or certainly the most explicit — modern president and party nominee to transparently generate, not to mention exacerbate, fear and white animosity toward people of color.

Despite his appeal to a small if potentially crucial segment of Black and Hispanic men, racial bigotry has been central to Trump’s appeal from his initial quest, in 2015 and 2016, to take over the Republican Party. In the closing days of the 2024 election, he continues to foment race hatred and to rely on it ever more intently.

The 2018 book “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America,” by the political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, documented the success of Trump’s strategy.

“Trump was distinctive in how he tapped into white grievance,” they wrote. “Trump’s primary campaign became a vehicle for a different kind of identity politics” — one oriented toward capitalizing on the feeling of many white people that they were being “pushed aside in an increasingly diverse America.”

Trump crushed his primary opponents by magnifying and mobilizing the racial resentment and bitter discontent endemic in the Republican electorate.