Using 'racist' in the context of criticizing Republicans is just name-calling. Bush displayed no open racism, bullied no one, and was not xenophobic. Same for Romney. Yet the anti-Trump language is just a more hysterical version of the anti-Bush and anti-Romney language.
At some point the term "racist" came to mean "insufficiently left wing". This happened because left wing types called every Republican "raaacciiiiist" - like a bored shepherd boy yelling "wolf" for amusement and likes on social media.
Trump is looking to get about the same amount of votes as Romney.
Clinton is getting a lot less votes than Obama got.
So there is an alternative explanation there, that rather than one group of people getting sick of shrill accusations of racism, a different group of people just doesn't like Hilary Clinton all that much.
A whole coalition of groups with different reasons for not voting for Clinton.
I'm just pushing back against the "unprecedented Trump blowout" narrative. So far he's got less popular votes than the loser of the last presidential election (Romney got 60,933,504 votes. Trumps at 59,088,517 with 98% of precincts reporting. He probably won't pick up another 1.8 million votes).
A different argument is that Trump attracted new people to the polls. I'd be more inclined to believe that many of those people are sick of establishment politics and their tactics. But I don't think they are actually a majority of Trump's support.
Bush was pretty inclusive racially. McCain too. IDK about Romney, but Mormons have written history and religion that makes him suspect on that, but he campaigned reasonably.
Trump campaigned openly on a racist, xenophobic platform. They were key parts of his rhetoric and key to a good proportion of his winning. That is the difference here.
At some point the term "racist" came to mean "insufficiently left wing". This happened because left wing types called every Republican "raaacciiiiist" - like a bored shepherd boy yelling "wolf" for amusement and likes on social media.
How's that working out?