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.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    71·
    4 months ago

    Again… it’s not agesist when you literally call out the entire population for doing the thing that population does.

    There it is again.

    The entire population - every individual who is a member of the specified population - does not do the thing which is observed to be in the statistical majority for that population (if that’s even the case here).