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.

  • krashmo@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    All people are racist to some degree. The ability of our brains to perform categorization and pattern recognition are two major reasons why humans have been successful as a species. We can’t help but apply those concepts to the people we interact with.

    Some people are more fear motivated and gravitate towards the “black people are violent” kind of racism while others tend towards the “Asians are good at math” kind of racism but both are forms of racism. Obviously the first type is going to have more negative outcomes in society than the second but that doesn’t mean the second type is not racist. They’re both fundamentally generalizations based primarily on the race of another human.

    Simplifying complex information for quick analysis is how our brains work and that’s essentially what racism is. There is no getting away from it completely.

    • Sternout@feddit.org
      0·
      3 months ago

      This is the correct answer. Racism is systematic and it is to simple to blame the individuel.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
      0·
      3 months ago

      In this case, I think using the term racist here is diluting the term and causing confusion. I think it’s better to us the anthropological term here of tribal, at least in your first and last paragraphs. If everyone is racist then I have trouble not considering that a normal part of being human. It seems like railing against people who breath or something. If we’re biologically programmed to be this way, then we need to stop trying to claim people are bad for their biology, and at best we’re now going to say there’s an acceptable and normal level of racism on the spectrum that everyone is on.

      I don’t think that’s a great framing, and avoiding that framing in my mind means not claiming that everyone is racist.