Poll: Americans Concerned About Race Rising Under Donald Trump

The number of Americans that believe race now stands as the most pressing issue facing the country has tripled under President Donald Trump over just the last two months.

A new Gallup Polls finds that 12 percent of Americans now think race or race relations stands as the nations “most important problem,” compared to just four percent in July.

The early days of the Trump administration have been dogged by racial strife and tension, including a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August where an anti-protester was killed and the president was widely perceived as being sympathetic toward march organizers.

“Racial tensions rose across the U.S. in August after a violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia,” Gallup wrote in tabulating the figures for the poll of 1,022 adults that was conducted over a five-day period beginning September 6.

In Charlottesville, Heather Heyer was killed when a demonstrator rammed his car into a crowd of anti-protesters.

“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups,” Trump said in the wake of the violence. “But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me.”

On the day of the March, alt-right organizers filled the streets of Virginia, chanting such Neo-Nazi slogans as “Blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.”

Accusations of stoking racial tensions are nothing new for Trump, who commenced his run for the Oval Office in 2015 by blasting Mexican immigrants as criminals.

Since taking over at the White House, Trump has moved to end such protections for immigrants who were brought here illegally by their parents as the Deferred Action for Children program.

Newsweek reports the new low numbers on race rival the high-levels of concerns expressed by Americans in the early 1990s, a time marred by several high-profile police shootings and the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King police beating verdict.

Meanwhile, a new Pew Research Center poll also finds just five percent of Mexicans now trust Trump’s judgment in international affairs.

In addition, pollsters found that 93 percent of Mexicans agree they have “no confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing regarding world affairs.”

By comparison, Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had the confidence of 49 percent of Mexicans in his last survey. Obama’s lowest marks came in 2011, when he still garnered 38 percent support.

“Views in Mexico are pretty made up,” Margaret Vice, the center’s senior researcher and co-author of the survey, said.

Trump made the claim that he plans to build a wall along the Mexican border a signature part of his campaign platform, all the while insisting that he planned to strong-arm the Mexican government into footing the bill for the costly project.

Overall, researchers found that 94 percent of Mexicans oppose the wall.

[Featured Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images]