Trump may have scored a decades-old revenge for being sued under a 1973 anti-segregation law

• Trump last Thursday repealed a Obama-era anti-segregation rule, in a bid to win back the support of suburban voters who are deserting him.
• Trump's first brush with publicity was back in 1973, when he and his father, Fred Trump, were charged with violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
• The rhetoric Trump is using in his attempt to win over suburban voters echoes the fearmongering of the late '60s and early '70s, an expert told Business Insider.
• But American suburbia has changed, and Trump's appeals to racist fears are unlikely to resonate, say some experts.

Trump's decision last Thursday to strike down Obama-era anti-segregation rule seemed to come out of the blue.

The measure required organizations seeking federal funding to actively demonstrate how they are working to avoid segregation, and was abruptly retracted by Trump.

Critics accused the president of racist fearmongering in a bid to win back suburban voters. Defenders said it was about placing power back in the hands of local communities.

On Wednesday Trump renewed his appeal to the fears of suburban Americans, tweeted that those living their "Suburban Lifestyle Dream" would no longer have "low income housing" built in their neighborhood after he rescinded the rule.

"Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!" tweeted the president.

—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

But with Trump, personal grudges often belie his politics — and the repeal recalls a five-decade-old US Department of Justice lawsuit against Trump, and the racist fears stirred by politicians at the time. The suit stemmed from the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which entangled Trump in litigation in 1973. In 2015, Obama enacted an extension of the act.

Trump has just reversed it.

The birth of Trump's aggressive style

Back in 1973 Trump was a young businessman helping his father, Fred Trump, manage an empire of rental properties across New York City. One of his first encounters with major publicity came when both men were sued by the DOJ.

It accused both men of violating the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968 by systematically discriminating against Black tenants.

The lawsuit ended with Trump agreeing to implement anti-segregation rules in his businesses, but avoiding any admission of guilt in the allegation that he had earlier violated the rules.

Mentored by controversial attorney Roy Cohn, it was during the legal battle that Trump first displayed the techniques that have become hallmarks of his political style: refusing to settle quietly and instead ferociously attacking his accusers.

"He turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to 'welfare recipients' and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation," noted The New York Times.

Trump went on to expand the rental property empire his father established to high-end hotels and resorts.

There is no suggestion that Trump in those businesses imposed discriminatory policies towards customers and clients.

Indeed, allies of the president, such as HUD Secretary Ben Carson, have defended him against racism accusations, claiming that "he was the one who fought for Jews and Blacks to be included in the clubs that were trying to exclude them," such as his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

But the lawsuit and political and racial battles of the '60s and early 70s seem to have left their mark on the president's political style as he seeks to claw back his polling deficit in 2020.

Trump has not discussed the '73 lawsuit publicly in years. But he has a pattern of pursuing personal grudges, over extended time periods, from the White House and on the campaign trail before. He continues to tweet angrily about former President Obama, even though Obama has not been in office for more than three years. He repeatedly levelled insults at the late Sen. John McCain. And he has backed a monthslong attempt to dig dirt on Joe Biden and his son, which led to his impeachment last year.

The Nixon playbook

Trump's legal tussle with the DOJ came during the so-called "white flight" era, when Black Americans were moving to cities in the north seeking jobs and opportunities, and white Americans were moving from inner cities areas to the suburbs.

The phenomenon was helped by racism in the real estate industry, which often excluded Black people from purchasing suburban homes.

"Many white households moved to suburban towns precisely because black households were effectively excluded from them by real estate agents and mortgage brokers," wrote Princeton economist Leah Boustan in the Times in 2017.

Legislation such as the '68 Fair Housing Act sought to punish property owners for discriminating against people on the basis of race colour, religion, sex, disability, family status, or national origin.

But politicians at the time, such as Republican President Richard Nixon, sought to exploit racist fears over housing, Bryan Gervais, an associate professor in politics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told Business Insider.

"Nixon's 'law and order' rhetoric of the '68 campaign included attacks on the Fair Housing Act ... Trump is drawing from the same playbook," said Gervais.

President Barack Obama's anti-segregation rule of 2015 was an extension of the 1968 act, and required organisations seeking federal funding for housing projects to proactively provide evidence that they were working to mitigate segregation.

Revenge against Obama

It's possible to see in Trump's move an attack on two old foes — the anti-segregation laws that mired him in legal battles in the 1970s, but also his predecessor in the White House, whose legacy Trump has spent much of the past four years seeking to dismantle.

On a political level Trump's repeal of the rule and mimicking of the racist rhetoric of the "white flight" era is unlikely to win him voters in a changed America, say some experts.

Data shows that the suburbs increasingly reflect America's diverse makeup. They are different places from the white enclaves Trump is seemingly pitching to.

"Generally, the image that suburbs are white bastions is one that hasn't been true for several decades," William Frey, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, recently told the LA Times.

A Bloomberg survey found that 44% of residents in the 50 largest suburban areas in the US now live in communities where 20% to 60% of residents are non-white.

Marc A Thiessen, a former chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote in The Washington Post in July that Trump's rhetoric was not just falling flat in suburban American, but backfiring.

"Trump's uncompromising rhetoric and retweets are driving away swing voters who don't want to be associated with a senior citizen shouting 'white power!'" he wrote.