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.

  • Flying Squid
    21•29 days 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
      2•29 days 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
        1•29 days 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.