Trump’s popularity with his base isn’t the result of economic anxiety, as many claimed in 2016. It’s about race and demographics.
TO UNDERSTAND THE rise of Donald Trump, you don’t need to go to a diner in the Midwest or read “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. Vance’s memoir.
You just need to know these basic facts:
In 1980, white people accounted for about 80 percent of the U.S. population.
In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.
Trump appeals to white people gripped by demographic hysteria. Especially older white people who grew up when white people represented a much larger share of the population. They fear becoming a minority.
John Brown didn't get to kill enough slavers, that's why we're all here. We gave the racists a little rope, and now they're trying to hang us with it. Been that way ever since Reconstruction ended.
Opposition to racism must be enduring. It must be absolute. It can brook no compromise, because compromise is tacit agreement to the validity (however small or marginal) of the opposition's point, and racism is based on an absurdity. And when a society starts validating absurdities... well, look at Trump.
They/we were often the minority but still held all the power.
We're simply terrified that in becoming the minority now, Black and Brown people would start treating us like we've treated them for hundreds of years.
Also, I wanted to say that the more open Trump is about racism, the more he will turn people off. There are a lot of people who are pretty much racists, but they would never admit it, even to themselves. These are people who cross the street when they see a black man coming toward them, but would never dream of saying the N-word and think Martin Luther King had a dream about something involving ending racism and that was good.
Those people will not want to be associated with Trump and Vance the more overt they get.
I actually think a core part of being republican has to do with hating someone and feeling superior to them. It can revolve around sex, education, accent, culture, religion, sexual orientation, government structure, or skin color, but they have to hate on someone. You can plot the generations of conservatives by who they (primarily) hate at any given time.
They have to wrap themselves in their hate-blanket and fantasize about how they'll have their AR-15 locked and loaded when the baddies come around. First they need to be scared, so they make up stories and lies about how "the other" corrupted their children, stole their jobs, took the government assistance, or performed DDOS on their interview, and then talk with friends or family on how evil the other is. Then they get great pleasure in having a big hate-orgy and trying hard to "trigger a liberal" spewing their made up hysterical bullshit.
A short list who's-who hate list for conservatives: communists, socialists, civil rights activists, labor unions, abortion rights people and doctors, environmentalists, academics, immigrants, "the gays" (all LGBTQ+ individuals), muslims, transgender people, "mainstream media". They've got to hate someone.
This is definitely true. It's something I've heard Trump supporters argue about firsthand. But it's not just only racism or the threat of being a minority, but the fear of losing freedom to do what they want according to their own skewed morals. So while a decent chunk of why they think the way they do is sheer racism and fear around that (especially since the start of the BLM movement), it's not the core of the problem.
I believe that this started as the resurgence of toxic masculinity in that Trump showing people it was okay to be misogynistic, racist, and homophobic in opposition to race, gender, and identity politics rising in the 2010s. Women's rights and LGBT people are in their sights as well and, despite their narrative fitting well with fundamentalist religious morals, this seems more like resentment that those movements didn't address their needs or issues. COVID restrictions that they disagreed with fanned the growing fire into the fulblown fascist conservative movement we see today.
So I don't think it's the fact that cis het white people are in lower relative numbers but it's the event of rising social progressivism and more rights for minorities and women that spurred the antagonism of them.
Tldr: Bigots are upset that they didn't get anything out of women's, LGBT, and minorities rights.
I don't think racism itself is enough for Trump and far-right to succeed, which is precisely why they've combined it with populism and working class rhetoric. Of course, there's still racism like how muslims are being portrayed as violent beasts as opposed to culture white christians, but a lot of it is also things like "immigrants are taking away money from welfare thats why you live bad" or "immigrants are taking our jobs" or "jews control everything and steal from workers" and so on, you know what they say.
Like any good right-wing propaganda, there is a grain of truth in those statements, and it's that economic reality of working class is shit - wages are stagnant, exploitation is rampant and just pure stress when it comes to finances. I do believe that if people's needs are met then the racist rhetoric would lose a lot of its power and people will just stop caring as much as they do right now, but that's very unlikely without any radical action.
Of course it's not just racism. You got to throw in sexism and other kinds of discrimination. This is not just targeting elderly white people, all this certainly it is targeting many of them. It's also targeting younger white people, and men, for example.
The other thing we should never forget is that Washington is full of sleazy politicians. In 2016, Trump was campaigning as a reformer, and people were hoping that maybe he would magically address some of that corruption. Of course he didn't, but he played on that hope, as reform candidates always do. And once people buy into him, it's easier for them to stay bought in than it is to admit that they got played.
Is anyone surprised by this? Trump is the same guy that spent 4 years demanding to see Obama's birth certificate because he didn't think he was a US-born citizen. That was his first foray into "politics" and it established both his loyal base and the tone of his public discourse.
They operate under the false beliefs that they already are and that "the libs" bring in foreigners to tilt the vote (which is litteraly not possible) and then "those people get free everything" to feed further into racism. The imaginary bussed in people can't vote or get benefits but thier social circle says so and thats all they need to believe and repeat it.
The triangle of rhetoric is appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, appeal to logic. They don't accept any of it thay didn't come from within thier social group so there is no convinving them and that is why Tronald Dump can say he could shoot somebody on 5th avenue and have them call it fake news despite being recorded.
(Edit x 5 :Why oh why can't spellcheck just work?)
In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.
Especially now that you can "become black."
That said, I wonder if someone like Obama is counted in the "white people" part of that statistic. He should. He's as white as he is black, just like Kamala Harris is as Indian as she is black.
Yeah when Vance released that book and everybody said you've got to read it It explains the entire mindset of the conservatives. I found a copy and read it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The entire f****** book is just an explanation that towns were built around big companies in coal mines and the big companies went overseas in the coal mines closed down. In the way it left drugs and joblessness.
It's not like immigrants are coming in and taking their jobs. And then the entire right is begging for companies to not have any repercussions for doing any of that s***. It's like they think if they're really nice to the companies the companies will be really nice back to them or something.
The whole book is just a poorly written country song that doesn't absolve any of the bad behavior at all.
While I do think racism plays a big role, articles like these that paint a large American section with broad brush like this play a dangerous game.
At this point if you're still supporting Trump, there is little that can be done for you with regards to changing your mind and youll be hard pressed to find sympathy.
But there is something to be said about the rural / urban divide. Small town America has been left behind - both economically and culturally and somehow we have to reach them. I don't know if it's a failure of messaging on the Dems or what exactly. I also think it's a much broader issue than just 'racism'.
he's not popular. he's super unpopular. he was the biggest energizer for democratic voter turnout despite a super unpopular and boring democratic candidate. even when he won the election he lost the popular vote. just because US elections are very antidemocratic doesn't mean he's popular. stop making shit up.