Not Rockin’ the Suburbs – The New York Times

Honestly, if you’ve been following politics during the Trump era, none of this erosion comes as much of a shock.

In 2018, the suburbs powered the Democratic takeover of the House, flipping key districts blue. A year later, suburbanites helped Democrats win governors’ mansions in reliably Republican Kentucky and Louisiana and flip both houses of the Virginia legislature. And during the 2020 primaries, Mr. Biden powered his Super Tuesday victories with big margins in the suburbs.

Part of the leftward shift stems from the voting preferences of college-educated women, whose dislike for the president has been well-documented. (In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, Mr. Biden leads by a whopping 24 points among suburban women and just four points among suburban men.)

But the composition of the suburbs is also changing, becoming more economically and racially diverse.

About 40 percent of Americans live in suburban districts, according to an analysis of congressional districts by CityLab, and about four in 10 of them aren’t white.

Those trends will probably be strengthened by the coronavirus, as city dwellers able to work remotely flee to places with more space and cheaper houses.

Those shifting dynamics seem lost on the Trump campaign.

The president and his operation spent much of the last week warning of a Democratic plan to “abolish our beautiful and successful suburbs.”

Mr. Trump was touting his effort to roll back an Obama-era rule that expands provisions in the Fair Housing Act to encourage diversification and “foster inclusive communities.”

“They are absolutely determined to eliminate single-family zoning, destroy the value of houses and communities already built, just as they have in Minneapolis and other locations,” he said, during his event at the White House on Thursday. “Your home will go down in value, and crime rates will rapidly rise.”

The dog isn’t whistling with this one, he’s barking really, really loud.

Mr. Trump is warning suburbanites that federal rules will flood their neighborhoods with “diverse” populations, spiking crime rates and bringing in the kind of chaos they saw depicted on right-wing media during the protests last month. The history of this kind of racial attack dates to the era of white flight and civil rights.

But as the country’s views on race have shifted, the suburbs have changed. It’s Mr. Trump’s politics that haven’t.

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“These kids have got to get back to school,” Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri said on a St. Louis radio show last Friday. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get Covid-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctors’ offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

What about teachers? Support staff? Parents? Other adults? Seems like the doctors may have some views on this one …

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