No.
There’s an important point being missed: turnout. The biggest faction in the American electorate is non-voters, mostly working class.
In order to win the election, you don’t need to convert the opposition’s voters; encouraging them to stay home while you turn out your own, different set of voters works as well or better, as Trump just demonstrated.
Were the working class people who voted for Trump racist? Yes; voting Trump was an act of racist aggression in and of itself. Was racism their only motivation? No. Are all working class people racist? Hell no. Is racism required to attract working class voters? Also no.
There are a large pool of working class non-voters out there. They don’t vote because they accurately perceive that neither party represents their interests.
Trump managed to activate the racist subset of them by pretending to care about their interests and adding bigotry as a sweetener. Bernie was activating a different subset of them by actually caring about their interests.
The assorted Dem-establishment figures pushing the Jim Webb line of “we need to tolerate racism if we want working class votes” are acting as if the existing electorate are the only voters available, where each Trump voter was a potential Clinton voter and vice-versa, and no other potential voters exist. This just isn’t true,
Racism is not required to attract the working class. Actually representing their economic interests is a better solution…unless you’re one of the 1%ers running the DNC, who stand to lose money when wages rise.
