For his supporters, it is simply Trump rejecting “political correctness” and showing a desire to revive American greatness. Many of his backers believe that Trump is no more to blame for stirring up racial tensions than was President Barack Obama.

“He’s a guy who does not have a filter and says what’s on his mind,” said Mike Jones, 63, a Trump supporter and owner of Mike’s Chicago Dog, a hot dog joint in Asheboro. Jones, who is white, believes that Obama widened racial divides, with his “rush to judgment” in the case of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen who was killed in a confrontation with a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012, and in instances of police shootings of African Americans.

The first unpleasant tug of history came before the election, when the yards around Dexter Trogdon Jr.’s house started blooming with Confederate flags. Then last spring, the Ku Klux Klan announced plans to burn a cross in town. A man apparently irked with his black neighbor hung a noose in his yard, and Trogdon started hearing a disturbing new view from some white people: that slavery wasn’t so bad for African Americans.

Old classmates started expressing sentiments that made his jaw drop. In one Facebook exchange, Trogdon said, one suggested that slavery could not have been so bad for black people since a few of them fought alongside Confederate soldiers in the Civil War.

“Why,” Trogdon thought to himself, “would anyone be idiot enough to defend slavery?”

Trogdon’s family members also started running into these notions. One day last fall, Trogdon’s 11-year-old stepson Naheem had been talking about what he described as “really stupid stuff that’s racist” with his friends in the cafeteria before school. A girl butted in: If you have such a problem with racism, go back to Africa, she told him, adding that he was lucky whites brought him to America.

In retrospect, Naheem thinks the girl probably took offense to his references to the Confederate flag. Though many view the flag as racist, some here consider it a proud symbol of their heritage.

That night, the principal called Naheem’s mother to apologize, and to assure her that the girl would be punished. The principal seemed stricken, recalled Natalie Trogdon, stunned that people could harbor such sentiments in 2017. She found herself in the incredulous position of having to console the white woman.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:I wonder if a black guy could remove his filter, say what's on his mind and get elected to high office. I guess we know the answer to that. Al Sharpton who's basically the black Donald Trump couldn't get elected to dog catcher.

confuzzled dude wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:I wonder if a black guy could remove his filter, say what's on his mind and get elected to high office. I guess we know the answer to that. Al Sharpton who's basically the black Donald Trump couldn't get elected to dog catcher.

Scaramucci didn't go much further either.. but we never know.. if the current trend continues, there is a good chance that Scaramucci will be elected to the highest office down the road.