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.

  • @linearchaosEnglish
    2•27 days 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.