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.
While the Census Bureau says there are still 195 million white people in America and that they are still the majority, the white population actually declined slightly in 2023, and experts believe that they will become a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050.
Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.
The Trump phenomenon and the surge of right-wing extremism in America was never about economic anxiety, as too many political reporters claimed during the 2016 presidential campaign.
It was, and still is, about race and racism.
I have a side of the family that still supports Trump. That same side of the family has interracial marriages and there are black babies that are very loved upon (and no, it wasn’t some scandalous thing, the relationship and the marriage was uncontroversial).
Clearly, those members of my family are not voting for Trump because they’re racist and afraid of skin colors.
They’re (in my understanding) voting for Trump because the older members when they were younger had more economic opportunities and felt more attached to their community and their faith. I don’t agree with them on priorities, but it’s not racism, it’s in more ways a sort of nostalgia for a time period when life didn’t involve so many complex and nuanced topics.
First off, it’s certainly possible that everyone in their family absolutely does love their interracial kids, but it’s also very possible they don’t; that is a dynamic I’d need to see to know. Behind closed doors, people change.
But either way, that would still be anecdotal, and not prove or disprove the tracked and statistically-validated rise in racist rhetoric in conservative spaces online, in conservative candidate platforms, in conservative legislators’ bills, etc etc etc.
I hate to burst your bubble, but “life was simpler when white people were 80% of the population, and we didn’t have to deal with Black people, we just let the cops do their thing, pre-phone-cameras” IS racism, whether they realize that or not. We know what was actually happening to Black people (lynchings, murder, sundown towns, Jim Crow laws used to imprison and enslave, etc). If your argument is, “well they just don’t care to think about that all, they want what was a better society for themselves, even if it was much worse for people of other ethnicities”, then you are acknowledging that they are (whether they realize it or not) making an argument for their (racial) comfort at the expense of others’.
Ignorance to the harm you’re advocating is not an actual defense, and it’s highly suspect when it’s very readily-known information. Willful ignorance at that level borders on malice (and once again, it’s not like the Republican platform isn’t absolutely rife with racist rhetoric, so it’s not like they’re just in a bubble where race isn’t discussed).
While this may be true, it doesn’t mean that trump supporters must be bigoted. Remember, America is a two party system. People are often forced to vote for who they disagree with less.
If you “disagree less” with vocal racists who have personal ties with White Nationalist groups… I might have some bad news for you.
Try and be more open minded. The world isn’t black and white and the issues that are important to you are not universally the priority for everyone. For instance, imagine if you were an immigrant from a country that was heavily drone attacked by the US. You might make your voting decisions based on the party that bombed your homeland less. The world will make more sense if you can invest time in understanding other people in stead of labelling them.
Obviously I understand this. The problem is, “racism is not important to me” is still a position with its own moral implications. Understanding a position does not mean you are alright with it. Not every sincerely-held position is equal. And yes, there are many black-and-white, “red line” positions. Genocide, murder, rape, etc, are not positions that people need to just “allow for differing opinions on”.
It’s funny you brought this up in particular, because I’ve talked before about a friend of mine who is in this position (he is Palestinian, and has lost a lot of family to Israeli- and likely US- weapons). He is anti-US-government, not anti-DNC/GOP (obviously his reaction is not universal to immigrants, but neither would any other given immigrant’s reaction be).
Understanding a viewpoint does not mean you have to be equally accepting of all possible conclusions stemming from that viewpoint.
That’s strawmanning my argument. I’m saying that just because someone prioritizes another issue over racism doesn’t make them bigoted. And if they believe their priority issues are best addressed by the Republican party or won’t be addressed by the Democrats, it would make sense for them to vote for trump.
The “all trump supporters are racists” argument comes from echo chambers and is dismissive of people’s legitimate criticisms of the Democrats. It’s not accurate or useful in creating meaningful discourse.
Apologies. Please amend my comment to
Perhaps more technically accurate, but no different in effect.
I feel like you think this is a counterpoint, or in disagreement with what I said, but it’s not. It’s literally what I said. If your personal economic issues or religious preferences are above the well-being of others in your personal priorities, that is a moral stance that is perfectly valid to criticize. Whether you are ignoring the harms, or simply de-prioritizing them in favor of your preferred benefits, it’s the same outcome.
I would refer you to the first line of my first comment in this post, which said
The problem is that some conservatives clearly want to be able to associate with the GOP based on piecemeal parts of their platform without actively opposing those parts they disagree with, and then have the right not to be held accountable in part for the damage that those parts they may or may not agree with do. That’s not how it works. I voted for Biden, and I have to live with the damage he’s done in Gaza and the West Bank. It is 1000% fair to judge me for that complicity. And that wasn’t even part of his platform, but I still enabled that.
Trump is openly, unapologetically racist and sexist. If you choose to associate with him, you do have to own that.
Check my comment history if you think I have any shortage of criticism of the Democratic Party, please. I have no issues with criticism of it.
I am highly interested in what criticisms from the Right are legitimate, though. The DNC is still a Center-Right party of neoliberal corporatism, even if we’re slowly making progress on it.
Frankly, I think we’re past the point where we can have that conversation at the national level. All of the routes for that have been under attack for years. No one trusts the other side’s media networks. No one trusts the other side’s politicians. Forums like Beehaw or even Facebook (given the way it’s structured) do not have anything even beginning to approach a national scale in their reach.
I’ve had good results with having these conversations with family members and a friend, but that’s not sufficient to fix what is now truly a social problem.
I appreciate this discourse and your thoughtful responses. These kind disagreements are what we need more of. I still disagree that supporting trump necessarily means condoning racism as depending on what issues you prioritize, it may be a case of choosing the lesser of two evils.
Hi! I’d like to budge in here, because while I think that the discourse you’re having is extremely useful, I think you’re missing @[email protected] 's point. I’ve spent a few hours considering your discussion so far, and I have a lot to say about it, so bear with me. If at any point I mischaracterize what has been said, please correct me.
I believe that Greg was arguing for what I’m going to call “moderate-ism.” If that name doesn’t suit you, feel free to change it. The idea he’s trying to convey is complex enough to warrant a name.
As some background, I consider myself agnostic, but I have both religious and atheist friends with strong points-of-view. Your discussion was similar in style to the conversations I’ve had with them. I say this to point out that “moderate-ism” is an idea about how to think about ideas, and is beyond any singular ideology.
I’d like to start by remaking your argument, move onto what the “moderate-ism” idea is, and then how it applies to your situation. Finally I’ll point out where I think the misunderstandings in your conversation were, and how they are similar to other “moderatist” debates that I’ve had.
These are the important points you’ve made: (You made a few others, but I think they were ancillary. I do address some of them later).
“If you “disagree less” with vocal racists who have personal ties with White Nationalist groups… I might have some bad news for you.”
And:
“The problem is, “racism is not as important to me as some other issue” is still a position with its own moral implications.”
As well as:
“[I’m] not saying simply that all Republican voters are racist, [I’m] saying that Trumpism and the surging Christian-Nationalist movement is.”
So, to more accurately convey your point: (and this is where the “correct me” part comes in).
“To vote for Trump requires an inherently flawed point of view; it’s important for us to be moral people. Voting for Trump would support racism. This would be so morally reprehensible that there is nothing with enough significance to out-weigh it. Therefore, do not vote for Trump.”
Note that neither I nor Greg are actually arguing for Trump. We’re arguing for moderate-ism. Assuming that there could be a valid point-of-view is different from believing them.
Lets boil the situation down more: Imagine we have two candidates running for president, but we only know one thing: One is racist; The other is not. The question is: how many valid points-of-view are there that end in voting for the racist? Your statements imply that there are none, but you’re assuming too much. A single point of view is extremely complex, and takes time to digest. If we’re talking about the millions of people who will vote for Trump, and their millions of different points-of-view, you certainly can’t assume most of them are invalid.
To put this in more mathematical terms: Imagine that each point-of-view is a vector. There is a set of point-of-view’s that could be considered valid. We don’t know very much about this set, only that it’s large. Therefore, to assume that this set of valid points-of-view doesn’t contain any which involve voting for Trump, would be to act on knowledge you don’t have.
The idea is more complicated than it seems at first glance. It’s more than just saying “other points-of-view could be valid.” A better simplification would be: Don’t assume that there isn’t a valid point-of-view involving ‘X’ type of belief. In more humanistic terms I’m saying, don’t completely rule out a system of beliefs because there’s a lot you might not understand.
The part of your conversation that reeled me in was when Greg made the following statement: “… Imagine … you were an immigrant from a country that was heavily drone attacked by the US. You might make your voting decisions based on the party that bombed your homeland less.” To which you made an argument as to why that specific statement would be incorrect. Gregg then called this rebuttal a straw-man.
There was a major misunderstanding here. Greg wasn’t actually making that argument. He was simply illustrating that there could be a point-of-view that you haven’t considered; One which is also valid. The difficulty of trying to make the argument in that way, and one that I’ve run into frequently, is that neither he nor I know specifically what that point of view is. If we did, we would believe it, or have disproved it. Rather, we assume that a valid point-of-view may exist; It’s possible we just haven’t come across it yet.
The reason the idea of “moderate-ism” is important, is that it helps a person avoid making broad assumptions about what can and can’t be true. I think this is what Greg meant when he said “Keep an open mind,” and “not everything is black and white.” Moderate-ism also avoids alienating the people in the group you aren’t a part of.
Ultimately most of us want the same things, we just have different idea’s about how to get there; Believing that is called “good faith.” Moderate-ism ties in by helping us work together instead of against each other.
Based on what you’ve already said you may have the following rebuttal:
“[I’m not arguing that their point of view isn’t valid, or that to vote for Trump is inherently wrong. I’m simply saying that] Trump is openly, unapologetically racist and sexist. If you choose to associate with him, you do have to own that.”
Based on the prior discourse, this could be restated: “It’s okay to vote for Trump, if you own that you are a morally reprehensible person.” Most people don’t want to be morally reprehensible. This is effectively making the same argument as I did (for you) above.
(I thought I would have more counter-counter arguments…)
Anyway, I appreciate that you’ve made it this far, and your willingness to discuss your opinions. I’m extremely interested in your thoughts on my “essay”. xD Again, I understand I’m cutting in. Please point out any and all mischaracterizations of your discussion.
Yeah, I’m done, you’re blocked. You don’t get to tell me about my own family.
EDIT (for anyone else that actually wants to engage in good faith): Furthermore, yearning for the effects of a time period doesn’t mean you’re in favor of the effects that caused that time period. Someone saying “I miss when gas was cheap” doesn’t mean “they miss exploiting and bullying people internationally to get the cheapest possible oil” … they just want their cheap gas (and that’s assuming what you miss is even directly related to the other thing, you can, e.g., miss how there used to be more drive-ins in the 60s while acknowledging it’s great that we got rid of leaded gas).
Trump’s a conman, he won’t give them what they feel they’ve lost back; but they believe he will. This doesn’t equate to middle America being filled with racist. You can’t write off an entire time period as exclusively being good for some people because it was bad for others. People can (as an example) like things about the 50s and 60s without liking Jim Crow.
The lie here is that you can engage with Republican rhetoric and only see this message. If you watch any Trump speech, he says racist things. The argument that you only care about the gas and house prices still inherently means that you’re choosing to ignore the racist stuff, even if you disagree with it personally.
edit:
You don’t get to turn your family into an argument, but then also decide it’s unassailable. They’re not your “instant win” button against racism in the GOP.
Suggestion: don’t use your family when discussing politics.
There are also, as they say, five levels of “truth” to any person:
You may or may not know their secret thoughts, and you usually need to spend a lot of time with them (years, decades) to learn about why they hold them.
And following my initial suggestion, I won’t tell you how I confirmed this to be true.
I know you mean well, but it’s fine to discuss your family at a level you feel comfortable. Your family is part of your experience in the world and that is fundamentally a part of your political perspective.
It’s not my problem that some people on the Internet want to insist they’re the expert on everything, even people, people they’ve never met.
When it comes to people, we should all try and keep an open mind about what perspectives might exist. These narratives that people are so divided, that Republicans are racist, greedy, and narcissistic, and that Democrats are handout seeking, weak, and naive … they need to be challenged (and first hand testimony is important but often seriously lacking).
If we’re just going to deny another person’s experiences are real anytime they don’t align with our world view … what’s the point of even being on a forum?