Why Trump's blunt appeals to suburban voters might not work

For one, these are not the American suburbs of the 1960s (and they have a lot fewer housewives). The scale of urban violence and the threats to that suburban lifestyle are a faint echo of that time. And while polling shows that suburban voters disapprove of the president’s job in general, they disapprove even more of his handling of the very issues he is trying to elevate…

In recent decades, cities have grown safer, and the suburbs have become much more racially and economically diverse. They have been sites of Black Lives Matter protests, too. About one in 10 suburban voters in the Times/Siena poll said they had participated in such a demonstration. A clear majority of suburban voters also said they believed there were broader patterns in America of excessive police violence toward African-Americans and bias against them in the criminal justice system.

For white suburban voters who do still live in segregated communities, the historian Matthew Lassiter said that threats today to suburban exclusion are much weaker than they were when President Nixon was elected. At the time, busing was still on the table. So was the possibility that desegregation plans might send students across city lines to neighboring school districts. Courts were still considering whether it was constitutional for wealthy districts to spend far more on education than poorer ones, or for suburban municipalities to keep out low-income housing.