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. Every component of the Trump-Republican agenda flows from these demographic fears.
The simple truth is that Trump is a racist, and it is his shamelessness about his racism that appeals to white people. He says what they wish they could get away with saying. They forgive his criminal behavior, his lies, his egomaniacal behavior, and his other flaws because of his racism, not in spite of it. They don’t care that his economic policies will benefit billionaires and not them, just so long as he makes sure minorities have it worse than them.
Vance followed up “Hillbilly Elegy,” his supposed paean to the working class, by becoming a puppet of right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel, who bankrolled his Senate campaign in Ohio. Trump no doubt chose Vance to be his running mate at least in part to get more money from billionaires for his campaign.
White supremacy is not new in the United States. Why would someone like Trump arise now because racism merely exists and not, say, in 1952 or 1965 or 1980? What is different about Trump? Is he really all that different when it comes to racism or white supremacy? Trump's main defining features are that he is rude, sassy, and is a lazy liar that doesn't even try to be slick about it, something the political class usually focuses on pretty heavily.
Demonizing immigrants, having a monstrous policy towards them, catering to the interests of white people, killing any number of overseas brown people without consequence, dispossessing entire global south countries? These are bipartisan positions. Biden has just as harsh of treatment of undocumented immigrants and by many metrics us worse, but you rarely hear about it because (1) he isn't openly rhetorically hateful, just in action, and (2) the media apparatus does not focus on it any longer. In fact, the Democratic party is trying to outflank the GOP from the right on harsh border controls and deportation policies and use GOP votes against their bills as gotchas in their media strategies. A polite fascistic policy is not materially better than a rude one. In fact, it is more difficult to fight, as people who don't think of themselves as racist or xenophobic can fly under the radar while supporting it and never have to really contend with the white suoremacy they are internalizing, supporting, and spreading.
So, what is unique about Trump and why does it arise now? He is a TV personality huckster, he is dramatic and sassy, he comes up with silly names for his opponents, he lies lazily. These are superficial things that reflect a superficial electoralism itself. A political media apparatus that is already shallow and obsessed with aesthetics. A focus on a horse race where whatever grabs attention is more likely to build support and Trump has generally been great at grabbing attention. Trump was even boosted by Dems back during Hillary's run as part of a strategy to make the GOP look foolish, but we are at a point in media production and consumption where what they thought was foolish was actually a highly appealing rhetorical thumb in the eye of a pretentious political class. His rudeness and sass and lazy lying was a strength. These are the things that people care about in the electoral process of 2016, 2020, 2024. A political clown show of different flavors made of the same basic ingredients. It has just reached a level of absurdity that itself catches attention and is, in fact, what most people critical of Trump focus on rather than actual policy.