We all remember Aesop's fable of the lonely shepherd boy who cried "Wolf" when there was no wolf, in order to get attention. And we all remember that after he'd done this several times, when there eventually was a wolf nobody came to his aid, and he was killed.
There are a lot of cries of "racism" being thrown around this election cycle. Most of them, it seems to me, are like the boy's cries when no wolf was present. Our political system causes members of party A to criticize the candidate of party B, and vice versa, regardless of the racial background of the candidates. It is certainly possible to criticize either the character or the policies of a presidential candidate without being a racist.
When one candidate has a minority background, that candidate's supporters are tempted to call any criticism of their candidate racism. Then the supporters of the opponent begin to think of ways to cry (reverse) racism. When everybody is accusing everybody else of racism, it creates an environment in which actual racism can go essentially unnoticed, lost in the political equivalent of "the fog of war."
Perhaps dialing back the "you're a racist" rhetoric on both sides might be to everyone's advantage.
