Ian Buruma: Age-old fears could fuel Trump election victory

Black Lives Matter protest outside the US Embassy in Dublin on Monday, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the US. Pic Stephen Collins/ Photos

US President Donald Trump's crass and incendiary words in response to the protests sweeping major cities horrified many Americans. But will age-old racial prejudices, often unspoken, or even acknowledged, still make them vote for the false security of a coarse white bully?

Could the United States be facing a reprise of the summer of 1968? Then, too, the world saw images of popular rage boiling over in America, as mostly African-American inner cities went up in flames, and young people were tear-gassed, charged at, and often brutally beaten by riot police and National Guardsmen.