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.
While the Census Bureau says there are still 195 million white people in America and that they are still the majority, the white population actually declined slightly in 2023, and experts believe that they will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050.
Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.
The Trump phenomenon and the surge of right-wing extremism in America was never about economic anxiety, as too many political reporters claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign.
It was, and still is, about race and racism.
This is a huge over simplification of a complex problem. Sure some people are bigoted and support trump but it doesn’t follow that all folks that support trump are bigoted. Wingers on the left and right use the same strategies of othering folks they disagree with. It’s ignorant to assert that people only support trump because they’re racists or people only support Harris because they’re communist/woke.
If you read it, it’s not saying simply that all Republican voters are racist, it’s saying that Trumpism and the surging Christian-Nationalist movement is, in a way that other Republican and conservative candidates in the past has not been, and that is the x-factor that makes them so appealing to many of their base right now.
If you live in those spaces and can “pass”, you’ll hear it come out. People start spewing racist shit when they think they’re in safe company. It’s not all Republicans, to be sure, but I’m my experience it’s definitely the majority of (remaining) Republicans. A lot of the ones who weren’t on board with that abandoned the party when Trump took over.
I have a side of the family that still supports Trump. That same side of the family has interracial marriages and there are black babies that are very loved upon (and no, it wasn’t some scandalous thing, the relationship and the marriage was uncontroversial).
Clearly, those members of my family are not voting for Trump because they’re racist and afraid of skin colors.
They’re (in my understanding) voting for Trump because the older members when they were younger had more economic opportunities and felt more attached to their community and their faith. I don’t agree with them on priorities, but it’s not racism, it’s in more ways a sort of nostalgia for a time period when life didn’t involve so many complex and nuanced topics.
First off, it’s certainly possible that everyone in their family absolutely does love their interracial kids, but it’s also very possible they don’t; that is a dynamic I’d need to see to know. Behind closed doors, people change.
But either way, that would still be anecdotal, and not prove or disprove the tracked and statistically-validated rise in racist rhetoric in conservative spaces online, in conservative candidate platforms, in conservative legislators’ bills, etc etc etc.
I hate to burst your bubble, but “life was simpler when white people were 80% of the population, and we didn’t have to deal with Black people, we just let the cops do their thing, pre-phone-cameras” IS racism, whether they realize that or not. We know what was actually happening to Black people (lynchings, murder, sundown towns, Jim Crow laws used to imprison and enslave, etc). If your argument is, “well they just don’t care to think about that all, they want what was a better society for themselves, even if it was much worse for people of other ethnicities”, then you are acknowledging that they are (whether they realize it or not) making an argument for their (racial) comfort at the expense of others’.
Ignorance to the harm you’re advocating is not an actual defense, and it’s highly suspect when it’s very readily-known information. Willful ignorance at that level borders on malice (and once again, it’s not like the Republican platform isn’t absolutely rife with racist rhetoric, so it’s not like they’re just in a bubble where race isn’t discussed).
While this may be true, it doesn’t mean that trump supporters must be bigoted. Remember, America is a two party system. People are often forced to vote for who they disagree with less.
If you “disagree less” with vocal racists who have personal ties with White Nationalist groups… I might have some bad news for you.
Try and be more open minded. The world isn’t black and white and the issues that are important to you are not universally the priority for everyone. For instance, imagine if you were an immigrant from a country that was heavily drone attacked by the US. You might make your voting decisions based on the party that bombed your homeland less. The world will make more sense if you can invest time in understanding other people in stead of labelling them.
Obviously I understand this. The problem is, “racism is not important to me” is still a position with its own moral implications. Understanding a position does not mean you are alright with it. Not every sincerely-held position is equal. And yes, there are many black-and-white, “red line” positions. Genocide, murder, rape, etc, are not positions that people need to just “allow for differing opinions on”.
It’s funny you brought this up in particular, because I’ve talked before about a friend of mine who is in this position (he is Palestinian, and has lost a lot of family to Israeli- and likely US- weapons). He is anti-US-government, not anti-DNC/GOP (obviously his reaction is not universal to immigrants, but neither would any other given immigrant’s reaction be).
Understanding a viewpoint does not mean you have to be equally accepting of all possible conclusions stemming from that viewpoint.
That’s strawmanning my argument. I’m saying that just because someone prioritizes another issue over racism doesn’t make them bigoted. And if they believe their priority issues are best addressed by the Republican party or won’t be addressed by the Democrats, it would make sense for them to vote for trump.
The “all trump supporters are racists” argument comes from echo chambers and is dismissive of people’s legitimate criticisms of the Democrats. It’s not accurate or useful in creating meaningful discourse.
Yeah, I’m done, you’re blocked. You don’t get to tell me about my own family.
EDIT (for anyone else that actually wants to engage in good faith): Furthermore, yearning for the effects of a time period doesn’t mean you’re in favor of the effects that caused that time period. Someone saying “I miss when gas was cheap” doesn’t mean “they miss exploiting and bullying people internationally to get the cheapest possible oil” … they just want their cheap gas (and that’s assuming what you miss is even directly related to the other thing, you can, e.g., miss how there used to be more drive-ins in the 60s while acknowledging it’s great that we got rid of leaded gas).
Trump’s a conman, he won’t give them what they feel they’ve lost back; but they believe he will. This doesn’t equate to middle America being filled with racist. You can’t write off an entire time period as exclusively being good for some people because it was bad for others. People can (as an example) like things about the 50s and 60s without liking Jim Crow.
The lie here is that you can engage with Republican rhetoric and only see this message. If you watch any Trump speech, he says racist things. The argument that you only care about the gas and house prices still inherently means that you’re choosing to ignore the racist stuff, even if you disagree with it personally.
edit:
You don’t get to turn your family into an argument, but then also decide it’s unassailable. They’re not your “instant win” button against racism in the GOP.
Suggestion: don’t use your family when discussing politics.
There are also, as they say, five levels of “truth” to any person:
You may or may not know their secret thoughts, and you usually need to spend a lot of time with them (years, decades) to learn about why they hold them.
And following my initial suggestion, I won’t tell you how I confirmed this to be true.
I know you mean well, but it’s fine to discuss your family at a level you feel comfortable. Your family is part of your experience in the world and that is fundamentally a part of your political perspective.
It’s not my problem that some people on the Internet want to insist they’re the expert on everything, even people, people they’ve never met.
When it comes to people, we should all try and keep an open mind about what perspectives might exist. These narratives that people are so divided, that Republicans are racist, greedy, and narcissistic, and that Democrats are handout seeking, weak, and naive … they need to be challenged (and first hand testimony is important but often seriously lacking).
If we’re just going to deny another person’s experiences are real anytime they don’t align with our world view … what’s the point of even being on a forum?
Most of his supporters are bigoted and every single one of them who isn’t mentally deficient certainly knows that they are supporting a bigot, so they still don’t get a free pass.
This is just saying the primary motivation wasn’t economic anxiety, it was and still is racism. It does not say that it is the only reason or that it is universal for all of his followers.