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.

  • @dexa_scantron
    4•5 months ago

    The average Black American is ~1/3 white (because of all the rape of enslaved women, basically) so he’s not that much off the average there.

    • Flying Squid
      4•5 months ago

      I don’t doubt it, but based on Trump’s reasoning, Kamala Harris has an Indian mother, so she’s Indian. Therefore Barack Obama has a white mother, so he’s white.

      Which is why I’m going to keep telling that to Republicans.