John Legend, the singer, explained minority men growing politically close to Trump by saying:

“Some people see the meanness, the bullying, the selfishness of Donald Trump and they mistake it for strength, a kind of twisted masculinity. Some see his greed and they mistake it for being good at business.”

This cultural confusion takes on painful power when it allows the overwhelmingly white GOP to slap down talk about Trump’s racism.

The Fox exit polls showed Trump winning 25 percent of the non-white vote, enabling Republicans to insist he could not be racist if such a sizable number of Blacks and Latinos voted for him.

By their logic, the people of color who voted for Trump just gave the 55 percent of whites who voted for Trump — including 59 percent of white men — a free pass for ignoring his racism.