Who is Donald Trump from the nonfiction book, Just Us: An American Conversation?

Rankine references President Donald Trump several times in the book, remarking on his explicit racism, which she believes is representative of the racist beliefs of a large portion of white Americans. In "liminal spaces i," for example, she mentions Trump's "inflammatory rhetoric" prior to the 2016 election in which he declared of Mexican immigrants: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists" (15). Later, in "social contract," she recalls attending a party with several white people who failed to grasp the role racism played in the election. "It's my belief anti-black and anti-Latinx racism couched in the terms 'Obamacare' and 'immigration' and 'the wall' was the mighty engine that brought our current president to power" (149), she explains, before noting that Trump identifies himself as a "nationalist," a word with a long history of being employed in service to white supremacy.