Let me try to be more clear. There is probably a racial component involved. I think the extent to which it is involved is overblown. The component that is involved is the fault of Democratic messaging. How do I arrive at this conclusion? Because the messaging of the GOP has remained pretty constant. The main difference between Trump and the typical Republican candidate (on policy) is in the economic realm. Trump ran on a populist economic plank. That was a plank that used to be in the Democratic platform and it is what made Labor so tightly bound to that party. The Democrats have been abandoning that message and instead have been focused on social justice. That topic tends to exclude whites, particularly white males, other than to say that the system is weighted in favor of them. So not only were the Democrats ignoring topics that were near and dear to these voters on one hand, on the other they are at the forefront of saying that these people need to put their needs on hold in favor of tipping the social justice scales back to minorities. That is a double economic whammy for those voters. Not only are you ignoring me but you seem to be arguing that even though I am struggling, I need to give up even more to pay for the sins of my great, great, great grandfather.
That is where I think race comes into play. The Democrats message was that White People had too much as opposed to we need to get minorities more. One connotates taking from one to give to the other, based on race, while the other connotates making sure everyone is getting a piece of the pie.
When it comes to politics, most people are like children. Cut a large piece of pie for one child and a little smaller for another. You piss the first child off when you take some of their pie to even things out. Not because they begrudge the other sibling getting more, it is because they begrudge you taking what they view as theirs. Same concept at play here. Whereas the left used to rail against "corporations" or "the rich" having the pie that poor whites and blacks could dip into, that argument has evolved to "white privelege" means you have too much pie and you need to give up some of yours to your minority brothers and sisters. That turns an economic argument into a racial argument. That is where I blame the left. Those same white voters would not give a damn if it was rich privelege giving up their pie to minorities. They are just protecting their slice from whomever they think is grabbing it.
Or to paraphrase Clinton, it's economics stupid.