Racism and Trump voters

I will be working on the assumption that Trump is racist. I see very clear evidence of that in his comments throughout the campaign. I'm just stating this up front, to be clear. It is the basis from which my thoughts and arguments stem.

The question I'm working on is: does voting for Trump automatically mean that voter is racist? I keep asking myself because I see many people making many claims around this question. 

My immediate gut reaction, uninformed by analysis, is that yes it does. If you know me, you'll know I rarely leave a thought at a gut reaction. 

There is the fairly strong argument that a ton of Trump voters voted for change in our political system, and Trump is simply the catalyst, though flawed. From another angle, if someone was voting against Clinton because she embodied for them the existing, frustrating gridlock of business-as-usual Washington, how can that be racist? 

John Scalzi had a very simple answer to this: 

And a much more detailed account of the same statement, with a beautiful analogy, here: 

Scalzi's Cinemax Theory of Racism

What both of these basically say is that since you voted for someone who was clearly racist, and you knew that he was/is racist, the act of supporting him is a racist act, that racism was part of the package that you cast a vote in support of. This is obviously an uncomfortable thing for someone to grapple with who just wanted to vote against Washington politicking. 

Many people (I'm sure a big majority) who voted for Trump are not people who would personally do horribly racist acts. A few are, and the stories are all over my facebook and twitter feeds, but those are outliers, albeit dangerous ones that need to be dealt with. The thing is, though, they didn't let Trump's racism automatically disqualify him. 

That's a key point. I'm going to repeat it. A vote for Trump meant that the voter did not see Trump's racism and disqualify him as a possibility. 

Trevor Noah and Hasan Minhaj cover this aspect here: 

Not a Deal Breaker?

Another important angle to look at this from is that of the targeted party. If I am a Muslim and someone tells me they voted for Trump, is that person a racist? It becomes so much more personal. The voter said - yes, I support the guy who doesn't think people of your faith should be allowed into the United States, our nation built on immigrants. 

I'm getting away from my point. In the end, a vote for Trump is at bare minimum racist because the voter didn't care enough to disqualify him. At worst, it is racist because he empowers a voter with truly horrible beliefs to feel better about having them.