This is why Donald Trump can lie and lie and still seem honest to conservatives

Talking about race without mentioning race isn’t just the most effective dark art of American politics — it’s the recipe for destroying the middle class.

In the 1960s, conservatives and the Osmond family realized they had one thing going for them: white people—lots and lots and lots of white people. The only problem was that a generation of Americans that had grown up watching liberal governance save the economy, win World War II and engineer the creation of the most vibrant middle class in history.

But Republicans soon learned the secret of turning Americans against government — and they learned it by watching a Southern Democrat George Wallace.

The racism of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!” was pretty easy to detect, even when cloaked in the gauze of “states rights.” But as it became cries for “law and order” and against “forced busing,” the notions became more abstract.

Now it’s not hard to figure out who the right is talking about when it references “makers and takers” or people wanting “free stuff.” But because the right has done an incredible job suggesting that any mention of race and any attempt to resolve the historic injustices of discrimination is racism — against white people.

We can’t let this fraud of “colorblindness” wreck our economy any longer.

With an actual birther about to win the GOP nomination on a platform of banning Muslims, the racially suggestive tone of the past has been replaced by outright bigotry, again. Republicans tried to argue that Trump is a lying liar who doesn’t have any true loyalty to them, which is true.

But it doesn’t matter if he contradicts himself, even in the same sentence. His willingness to say immigrants who have come here from Mexico are largely “rapists” and “criminals” and not just hint at it — as many Republicans have for decades — is the only “conservative” credential he needs. That’s how effective racial politics have been in shaping our electorate.

We can’t miss this opportunity to get at the heart of the right-wing attack on government using coded and strategic racism. And this video above from Demos and MoveOn.org is one that everyone needs to see to get this conversation started.

Racism hurts everyone — everyone, except rich conservatives who have used this hate to suck enormous amounts up to a small group of rich families. And if we’re going to change that, we’re going to have to start talking about what we’re talking about when we don’t specifically talk about race.