this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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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.

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[–] PugJesus 99 points 2 months ago (1 children)

John Brown didn't get to kill enough slavers, that's why we're all here. We gave the racists a little rope, and now they're trying to hang us with it. Been that way ever since Reconstruction ended.

Opposition to racism must be enduring. It must be absolute. It can brook no compromise, because compromise is tacit agreement to the validity (however small or marginal) of the opposition's point, and racism is based on an absurdity. And when a society starts validating absurdities... well, look at Trump.

[–] breadsmasher 54 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

and the fact the confederacy was allowed to “live ~~in~~ on” in memory as heritage, and allowed statues honouring traitors to the United States

If you allow confederate statues to honour enemies of the country, why are there no statues honouring the british red coats from the war of independence? Where are the statues honouring soviet spies executed for espionage?

[–] PugJesus 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Constructed largely after the cowards were all dead, in the civil rights era. And yet some people still insist that it's 'history' to leave them standing instead of a blatant attempt to cement the United States as a 'White Man's' polity.

Fuck them.

If you allow confederate statues to honour enemies of the country, why are there no statues honouring the british red coats from the war of independence? Where are the statues honouring soviet spies executed for espionage?

Let's make some 9/11 memorials to commemorate those brave hijackers too.

It's fucking absurd, and while I know HOW it got started, I don't know how it got started. You know what I mean? Like, I understand the conditions that led to the rise of Lost Causer nonsense, but I just can't wrap my fucking head around the idea that everyone just fucking normalized it. Like, even if you are a racist (as most 19th century Americans were to at least some degree), what the fuck kind of lunatic country commemorates the 'heroism' of literal traitors and secessionists who killed hundreds of thousands of our countrymen?

Sherman didn't burn enough.

[–] thesohoriots 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sherman should’ve done a victory lap juuuuust to make sure

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[–] Stern 8 points 2 months ago

Fun fact: There is a statue in honor of famous traitor Benedict Arnold... kinda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Monument

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean there should at least be a statue commemorating when we future Canadians had most of DC burning, including the White House and Capitol.

:p

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They fear becoming a minority.

They/we were often the minority but still held all the power.

We're simply terrified that in becoming the minority now, Black and Brown people would start treating us like we've treated them for hundreds of years.

[–] FlyingSquid 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

We’re simply terrified that in becoming the minority now, Black and Brown people would start treating us like we’ve treated them for hundreds of years.

That is definitely a huge part of it. And it's total projection like so much else they believe. "They'll get revenge because we would get revenge."

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[–] bookcrawler 36 points 2 months ago (8 children)

They fear becoming a minority.

clutches pearls Goodness gracious, someone might treat them like they treat minorities!

That is literally what the white "christians" have been stressing about here. As a minority mutt that "passes", maybe try being less of an asshole?

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[–] FlyingSquid 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Also, I wanted to say that the more open Trump is about racism, the more he will turn people off. There are a lot of people who are pretty much racists, but they would never admit it, even to themselves. These are people who cross the street when they see a black man coming toward them, but would never dream of saying the N-word and think Martin Luther King had a dream about something involving ending racism and that was good.

Those people will not want to be associated with Trump and Vance the more overt they get.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (4 children)

This is an interesting question - if you're lying to yourself about being racist, and won't condone racist policies and you know, act in a way to not look racist... Like a philosophical P zombie, are you for all external functional (maybe limited to politically) purposes not racist?

[–] dexa_scantron 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, they're still racist because their actions (e.g. voting for Trump) increase racial inequality.

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[–] krashmo 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] blady_blah 23 points 2 months ago (9 children)

I actually think a core part of being republican has to do with hating someone and feeling superior to them. It can revolve around sex, education, accent, culture, religion, sexual orientation, government structure, or skin color, but they have to hate on someone. You can plot the generations of conservatives by who they (primarily) hate at any given time.

They have to wrap themselves in their hate-blanket and fantasize about how they'll have their AR-15 locked and loaded when the baddies come around. First they need to be scared, so they make up stories and lies about how "the other" corrupted their children, stole their jobs, took the government assistance, or performed DDOS on their interview, and then talk with friends or family on how evil the other is. Then they get great pleasure in having a big hate-orgy and trying hard to "trigger a liberal" spewing their made up hysterical bullshit.

A short list who's-who hate list for conservatives: communists, socialists, civil rights activists, labor unions, abortion rights people and doctors, environmentalists, academics, immigrants, "the gays" (all LGBTQ+ individuals), muslims, transgender people, "mainstream media". They've got to hate someone.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is definitely true. It's something I've heard Trump supporters argue about firsthand. But it's not just only racism or the threat of being a minority, but the fear of losing freedom to do what they want according to their own skewed morals. So while a decent chunk of why they think the way they do is sheer racism and fear around that (especially since the start of the BLM movement), it's not the core of the problem.

I believe that this started as the resurgence of toxic masculinity in that Trump showing people it was okay to be misogynistic, racist, and homophobic in opposition to race, gender, and identity politics rising in the 2010s. Women's rights and LGBT people are in their sights as well and, despite their narrative fitting well with fundamentalist religious morals, this seems more like resentment that those movements didn't address their needs or issues. COVID restrictions that they disagreed with fanned the growing fire into the fulblown fascist conservative movement we see today.

So I don't think it's the fact that cis het white people are in lower relative numbers but it's the event of rising social progressivism and more rights for minorities and women that spurred the antagonism of them.

Tldr: Bigots are upset that they didn't get anything out of women's, LGBT, and minorities rights.

[–] PriorityMotif 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I'll agree with you except for the timeline. It started after 9/11, bigotry was far less openly acceptable during the 90s. It just blew up after Obama was elected and social media took off. People were all exposed to the same type of media at the time, and big media companies weren't spreading extremely racist content, other than a few fringe things like Rush Limbaugh. Fox news really took off after 9/11 too.

[–] TSG_Asmodeus 5 points 2 months ago

I’ll agree with you except for the timeline. It started after 9/11, bigotry was far less openly acceptable during the 90s.

I want to disagree with this because bigotry was huge in the 90's, but so was attacking it. Our cartoon's were chock-full of anti-bigotry messaging, but then movies would be the opposite.

I think I, personally, would typify the 90's with saying that one out-group is ok, but only if we all make fun of another one or you're the butt of jokes. IE. You can have Will and Grace, but we're using 'gay' as a word to literally just mean 'bad.'

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think racism itself is enough for Trump and far-right to succeed, which is precisely why they've combined it with populism and working class rhetoric. Of course, there's still racism like how muslims are being portrayed as violent beasts as opposed to culture white christians, but a lot of it is also things like "immigrants are taking away money from welfare thats why you live bad" or "immigrants are taking our jobs" or "jews control everything and steal from workers" and so on, you know what they say.

Like any good right-wing propaganda, there is a grain of truth in those statements, and it's that economic reality of working class is shit - wages are stagnant, exploitation is rampant and just pure stress when it comes to finances. I do believe that if people's needs are met then the racist rhetoric would lose a lot of its power and people will just stop caring as much as they do right now, but that's very unlikely without any radical action.

[–] Waldowal 5 points 2 months ago

His supporters certainly don't mind an awful lot of racism though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Of course it's not just racism. You got to throw in sexism and other kinds of discrimination. This is not just targeting elderly white people, all this certainly it is targeting many of them. It's also targeting younger white people, and men, for example.

The other thing we should never forget is that Washington is full of sleazy politicians. In 2016, Trump was campaigning as a reformer, and people were hoping that maybe he would magically address some of that corruption. Of course he didn't, but he played on that hope, as reform candidates always do. And once people buy into him, it's easier for them to stay bought in than it is to admit that they got played.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

That true, actually where I grew up there were few orange people, but lately I noticed some people elected one !

Btw I am an antiracist so I will not descriminate but please dear U.S.A. citizens do not vote for this orange guy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Why? Are minorities treated badly or something?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Whenever a group of white people get scared everyone suffers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Is anyone surprised by this? Trump is the same guy that spent 4 years demanding to see Obama's birth certificate because he didn't think he was a US-born citizen. That was his first foray into "politics" and it established both his loyal base and the tone of his public discourse.

[–] Roflmasterbigpimp 10 points 2 months ago

WHAT? Not Trump! /s

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 10 points 2 months ago

Why are they worried about white pepper becoming the minority? I mean, do we treat minorities badly around here or something?

[–] Resol 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure this applies to all right-wing politicians, especially ones of the far-right.

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[–] TeoTwawki 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

They fear becoming a minority.

They operate under the false beliefs that they already are and that "the libs" bring in foreigners to tilt the vote (which is litteraly not possible) and then "those people get free everything" to feed further into racism. The imaginary bussed in people can't vote or get benefits but thier social circle says so and thats all they need to believe and repeat it.

The triangle of rhetoric is appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, appeal to logic. They don't accept any of it thay didn't come from within thier social group so there is no convinving them and that is why Tronald Dump can say he could shoot somebody on 5th avenue and have them call it fake news despite being recorded.

(Edit x 5 :Why oh why can't spellcheck just work?)

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[–] Pacmanlives 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yuuuuup, just came from the bowls of Ohio and it’s a lot of truths

[–] machinin 5 points 2 months ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago
[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

In 2024, white people account for about 58 percent of the U.S. population.

Especially now that you can "become black."

That said, I wonder if someone like Obama is counted in the "white people" part of that statistic. He should. He's as white as he is black, just like Kamala Harris is as Indian as she is black.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Especially now that you can "become black."

Well, if they're all so scared that white males are the most discriminated against, they should all become black women. Problem solved!

/S, of course.

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[–] almar_quigley 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I’d imagine he be classified as mixed race or something since he’s both not either?

[–] BottleOfAlkahest 6 points 2 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Not one drop rule still applies to this day

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[–] undergroundoverground 5 points 2 months ago

Not just racism. His platform was racism AND a magical wall that pays for itself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I feel like this article gets written every 3 weeks.

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