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.

    • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 month ago

      It’s only in the past few years that “two or more” races became an option on most demographic forms. Even into the early 2000s most demographic forms only let you pick one category so you had to make a choice. The 2024 number may more accurately account for mixed race people but there is no way that 80s number does at all.

      Source: was a confused mixed child asking adults which I should pick on official forms and just got shoulder shrugs and hand waving from them.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
      61·
      1 month ago

      Three other day, I was reading through the parts of Mississippi constitution which regard marriages and got to the section about race-mixing. It was really disturbing to see some of those incredibly offensive terms merely crossed out from such a legally influential document.

      Also, I learned that you have to accept the existence of “a supreme being” to hold any office in Mississippi. Less fucked up, but still fucked up.

      • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
        31·
        1 month ago

        I grew up in the south. Mississippi was too much even for a lot of us more country folk. My apologies to any decent people in Ms for getting lumped in with the rest of the terrible folks in that state….

        • thefartographer@lemm.ee
          22·
          1 month ago

          Oof. I’m from Texas and had a friend in highschool who grew up in Mississippi. One day while discussing dominant and recessive traits in biology, she noted that she was born left-handed, but the teachers at her public school beat it out of her and got her to use her right hand. Anytime she’d use her left hand they’d

          smack her hand with a ruler

          because

          “that’s THE DEVIL’S hand!”

          Fucking beating kids in public school over superstitions! How we haven’t nuked Mississippi yet is beyond me. Fuck it, nuke everything from Texas to Florida up to South Carolina. I haven’t lived a perfect life, I’m sure I deserve a face-full of nuke, too.