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.

  • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Trump showing people it was okay to be misogynistic, racist, and homophobic

      Yup. It’s far more that racism alone.

      It’s all sorts of bigotry that Trump has essentially given them permission to stop hiding.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      I’ll agree with you except for the timeline. It started after 9/11, bigotry was far less openly acceptable during the 90s. It just blew up after Obama was elected and social media took off. People were all exposed to the same type of media at the time, and big media companies weren’t spreading extremely racist content, other than a few fringe things like Rush Limbaugh. Fox news really took off after 9/11 too.

      • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        6 months ago

        I think after 9/11 they were still the same old tactic they used in and after the cold war; security theater and fear mongering. But you’re right, news and political representatives definitely weren’t the completely open bigots that they are today though and I think you might be right about that time period being the start of today’s Fox news.

        Social media definitely had a profound impact on politics, people’s rights, and open bigotry. This definitely gave them the means to have more of a voice with younger demographics but I’ll still argue that it wasn’t until Trump entered the picture that they were able to really push their narrative and decouple “truth” from official news sources in the minds of many. I don’t think I’ve seen so many people just repeat distorted views of reality at once until then.

      • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        I’ll agree with you except for the timeline. It started after 9/11, bigotry was far less openly acceptable during the 90s.

        I want to disagree with this because bigotry was huge in the 90’s, but so was attacking it. Our cartoon’s were chock-full of anti-bigotry messaging, but then movies would be the opposite.

        I think I, personally, would typify the 90’s with saying that one out-group is ok, but only if we all make fun of another one or you’re the butt of jokes. IE. You can have Will and Grace, but we’re using ‘gay’ as a word to literally just mean ‘bad.’

  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • credo@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    The elderly need to SIT DOWN. It’s not their planet anymore, and they need to get over it.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      0·
      6 months ago

      You’re conflating “elderly” with “racist.” Ageism is also a thing, check yourself.

      • credo@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        It’s not ageist. I have no problem with elderly voting. My question is why do they vote?

        This is why the right keeps attacking social security; to keep folks who don’t actually have a stake in the future at the voting booths. Then, en masse, they vote against equality and the very future of our planet’s surface all because of outdated ideologies. Because of their self-centeredness, they hold back progress.

        WHY do they vote when they won’t be here to see the result? Do they think the generations that will are too stupid to govern themselves?

        This has nothing to do with “ageism”, which is an statistical idea applied individually. I’m discussing statistics applied to the appropriate population. Check yourself.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
          0·
          6 months ago

          This has nothing to do with “ageism”, which is an statistical idea applied individually.

          While I disagree with that statement, especially in this context, I’m glad to see that you understand the difference between discussing statistics about a demographic population (identified by observation of past events) and inappropriately applying those statistics to an individual.

          When you said

          The elderly need to SIT DOWN. It’s not their planet anymore, and they need to get over it.

          You were insisting on specific future actions (“SIT DOWN” and “get over it”). Actions are taken by individuals. Age is a characteristic that individuals do not have control of. It is not a decision, and we don’t cast aspersions on people for things they do not have control of.

          I think there are better ways to say the thing you intended to say, without being ageist.

          • credo@lemmy.world
            0·
            6 months ago

            Lol. This is a stretch.

            Again… it’s not agesist when you literally call out the entire population for doing the thing that population does. You were wrong, get over it too.

            • Nougat@fedia.io
              0·
              6 months ago

              Again… it’s not agesist when you literally call out the entire population for doing the thing that population does.

              There it is again.

              The entire population - every individual who is a member of the specified population - does not do the thing which is observed to be in the statistical majority for that population (if that’s even the case here).

        • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
          0·
          6 months ago

          Do you also buy the Vance line that people who don’t have kids should not vote because they don’t have skin in the game? At what age are you too old (or need to have kids by) to be concerned about the future? And regardless of “the future” at least some policy’s are about right now. Like the abortion bans or getting rid of Medicare or social security, or raising taxes or regulation of sources of heat or stoves etc… These matter to people till they die ffs.

          • credo@lemmy.world
            0·
            6 months ago

            Nope. But I think people who don’t have kids should deeply consider why they are sitting on a school board, voting to ban books, etc.

            • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
              0·
              6 months ago

              To clarify here - do you think that people should be forced to leave school boards as soon as their kids graduate? Do they end up eligible again if their kids have grandkids? Is this limited to people with kids going to that specific school? Also, does paying school taxes not make you have some skin in the game?

              And what about just input on the society you live in? It seems to me the solution in your example would be to have younger people run for / contest the school board.

              • Nougat@fedia.io
                0·
                6 months ago

                I want to go on the record on the side of “Yes, people without kids are absolutely capable of caring about education.”

                But I also wanted to offer a correction:

                Is this limited to people with kids going to that specific school?

                School boards are for the school district, which is obviously composed of many elementary schools, junior highs, high schools. Without speaking for every school district in the country, I would expect that school board members would need to be residents of the district.

              • credo@lemmy.world
                0·
                6 months ago

                Did I say people should be forced to leave?

                Here try this: Do you think people from Russia should vote in our elections? If you put any thought at all into your argument, you’ll see in advance that you lose this little debate.

      • credo@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        Lol, I’m over 30. People under thirty have more at stake than I do.

        And let me know where I said people can’t vote. I can’t help it if you make up things, now can I?

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
    0·
    6 months ago

    They fear becoming a minority.

    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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      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.

      That is definitely a huge part of it. And it’s total projection like so much else they believe. “They’ll get revenge because we would get revenge.”

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        And at what point does that become a self-fulfilling prophecy? The longer minorities in this country are treated as second-class citizens, the more likely it becomes for them to treat whites the exact same way when they’re the minority.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          0·
          6 months ago

          If there wasn’t a purge when most of the black population of the country was released from slavery, I don’t think a purge is coming.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • orcrist@lemm.ee
    0·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • bookcrawler@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    They fear becoming a minority.

    clutches pearls Goodness gracious, someone might treat them like they treat minorities!

    That is literally what the white “christians” have been stressing about here. As a minority mutt that “passes”, maybe try being less of an asshole?

    • Novman@feddit.it
      0·
      6 months ago

      I don’t know if you understand, but every ethnic minority in every part of the world have problems. USA now is involved in at least two ethnic conflicts ( gaza and ukraine/dombass ). What do you american don’t understand is that a country without an ethnic majority is unstable. See jugoslavia of austro-hungary empire. I think that usa enemies are really happy about a balkanisation of the usa. Your comment should be make chinese happy. You start to talk like a balkan ethnicity.

      • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        white people aren’t even close to becoming a minority, we’re just approaching a point that no race is the majority. there will still be more white people than any other race here for a long long time, and when that changes it’s only going to be because of racial mixing and a loss of racial identity or the birth of a new one. white people will not be a minority just because they become less than 50% of the population. they will lose some of the privilege they have and that may feel like oppression to them, but they will not become a minority.

      • draneceusrex@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 months ago

        I guess this is one of the few times American Exceptionalism actually proves right. We’ve always been a melting pot of cultures. That includes many different “white” cultures for a good few centuries, but go ahead and ask the Irish and Italian immigrants if they didn’t feel like minorities as they were coming off the boats to Ellis Island. Even next to the oppression and brutality both Native and Black Americans faced, their contributions to our society are innumerable and invaluable. The new immigrants coming from Latin America are just being played for political gain while we appreciate and depend on their willingness to work our farms and construction sites. Their kids are just as adapted to American culture as mine are, just as every second generation of immigrants turns out to be. We stress a huge amount about racism (and yes we still have a long way to go, as Trump shows) but when you really compare us to other countries, we seem to be doing alright. The melting pot will keep going, even once us white people are under 50% of the population.

        • Novman@feddit.it
          0·
          6 months ago

          I think that you overextimate the american exceptionalism. In the xx century the europe was destroyed in the ww leaving the usa as the only state not touched by the wars. The rest of the world was lagging techlogicaly. Now the situation is different. Usa is a young country and it is not different from any other.

          • draneceusrex@lemmy.world
            0·
            6 months ago

            11 aircraft carriers, the dollar being the fiat currency of the world, and our cultural dominance pretty much seals the hegemony win for the US since the '90s, but ok, sure dude. We’re no different than other countries…