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We are seven months out from the most consequential election in our nation’s history, and Black voters know what’s up: A recent survey conducted by Black pollster Cornell Belcher’s firm asked 800 Black voters in battleground states to identify the single greatest threat to the Black community.

Their answer? A second Donald Trump presidency.

We should not be surprised by this finding. Trump is prepared to enact – and in many cases, reenact – policies that will do great harm to the Black community and to communities of color. He is expected to authorize mass deportations, wage war on the federal civil service (of which Black employees comprise 18 percent), cut taxes for the rich at the expense of the middle class, fight to make healthcare more expensive and less accessible and support an abortion ban that will only worsen the maternal mortality crisis.

While we have focused a lot on what Trump would do during a second term with the stroke of his pen, we cannot forget about the damage he inflicted on our community as president without even lifting a finger. Over his four years in office, Trump normalized a culture of racism and xenophobia that trickled down from the highest levels of our government to everyday interactions in-person and online. The former president’s social media posts and speeches were laced with a mix of dog whistles and outright hate speech.

How could we ever forget his claim that the attendees of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. were “very fine people?” Or when he ordered members of the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” after being asked to condemn the white nationalist militia group? Or when he suggested that four Democratic members of Congress – all women of color – should “go back…[to the] places from which they came” in a tweet that a Republican congressman even described as racist?

Coming from the mouth of the President of the United States, this kind of rhetoric signaled that hate did indeed have a place in his America and gave top cover to those who realized they no longer had to keep their racism under wraps.

Consequently, racial violence skyrocketed during Trump’s presidency. In fact, this trend started before he even took office. The Washington Post found that counties that hosted a Trump rally in 2016 experienced a 226 percent increase in hate crimes in the months that followed. From 2016 to 2017, hate crimes across the country increased by 17 percent. From 2018 to 2019, deadly hate crimes more than doubled. And in 2020, more hate crimes were reported than in any year since 2001. Perhaps unsurprisingly, alleged civil rights violations went under-investigated under Trump’s DOJ. During its first two years, the Trump DOJ opened 60 percent fewer civil rights cases than did the Obama DOJ and 50 percent fewer than the Bush DOJ.

For those who think that the extent of the harm inflicted by Trump’s racism can be fully captured in those statistics, think again. In a multitude of ways, the Black community continues to suffer from the flames of hatred that Trump fanned while he was president. For example, racism is exacerbating the Black mental health crisis: Black youth experienced a 144 percent increase in suicide rates from 2007 to 2020, with both institutional and interpersonal racism identified as strong risk factors driving this trend.

While Trump was president for only a portion of that period, he was active in spreading racism – including promoting the Barack Obama birtherism lie – for almost the entirety of it.

Speaking of Obama, the election of our nation’s first Black president helps us understand why the election of Trump – which once seemed unthinkable – was actually an inevitable reaction to Black progress. Study after study has pointed to racial resentment as a significant driver of the support Trump received from his voters. His base wanted trickle-down racism, and trickle-down racism is what they got.

Fast forward to today, and like any other proverbial old dog, Trump is clearly stuck on his old tricks. On the campaign trail this time around, he has already evoked Hitler, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country, and suggesting that Black voters appreciate him because he is being “discriminated against” in the legal system. Naturally, Republicans have made him their nominee for the third time. But while he might speak for their party, we do not have to let him speak for our country. Not again.

In 2016, Trump promised his supporters the ability to hate openly with impunity, and he most certainly delivered. Now, he’s ready to do it all over again. And while it might be tempting to give into fear and cynicism, we should take hope in recognizing that thanks to our community showing up for Joe Biden in 2020, we helped elect a president who is committed to aggressively prosecuting hate crimes, who has appointed judges with a respect for civil rights, and who recognizes that “hate never goes away, it only hides.”

Donald Trump has never hidden his hate. This fall, let’s show him once again that it has no place in our America.

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Gevin Reynolds is a former speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris and a contributor to Resolute Square. Follow him on X at @GevinReynolds.