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.
First off, itās certainly possible that everyone in their family absolutely does love their interracial kids, but itās also very possible they donāt; that is a dynamic Iād 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 legislatorsā bills, etc etc etc.
I hate to burst your bubble, but ālife was simpler when white people were 80% of the population, and we didnāt have to deal with Black people, we just let the cops do their thing, pre-phone-camerasā 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, āwell they just donāt 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 ethnicitiesā, then you are acknowledging that they are (whether they realize it or not) making an argument for their (racial) comfort at the expense of othersā.
Ignorance to the harm youāre advocating is not an actual defense, and itās highly suspect when itās very readily-known information. Willful ignorance at that level borders on malice (and once again, itās not like the Republican platform isnāt absolutely rife with racist rhetoric, so itās not like theyāre just in a bubble where race isnāt discussed).
While this may be true, it doesnāt 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 ādisagree lessā with vocal racists who have personal ties with White Nationalist groupsā¦ I might have some bad news for you.
Try and be more open minded. The world isnāt 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, āracism is not important to meā 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, āred lineā positions. Genocide, murder, rape, etc, are not positions that people need to just āallow for differing opinions onā.
Itās funny you brought this up in particular, because Iāve 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 immigrantās reaction be).
Understanding a viewpoint does not mean you have to be equally accepting of all possible conclusions stemming from that viewpoint.
Thatās strawmanning my argument. Iām saying that just because someone prioritizes another issue over racism doesnāt make them bigoted. And if they believe their priority issues are best addressed by the Republican party or wonāt be addressed by the Democrats, it would make sense for them to vote for trump.
The āall trump supporters are racistsā argument comes from echo chambers and is dismissive of peopleās legitimate criticisms of the Democrats. Itās 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 itās not. Itās 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, itās 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. Thatās not how it works. I voted for Biden, and I have to live with the damage heās done in Gaza and the West Bank. It is 1000% fair to judge me for that complicity. And that wasnāt 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 weāre slowly making progress on it.
Frankly, I think weāre 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 sideās media networks. No one trusts the other sideās politicians. Forums like Beehaw or even Facebook (given the way itās structured) do not have anything even beginning to approach a national scale in their reach.
Iāve had good results with having these conversations with family members and a friend, but thatās 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! Iād like to budge in here, because while I think that the discourse youāre having is extremely useful, I think youāre missing @[email protected] 's point. Iāve 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 Iām going to call āmoderate-ism.ā If that name doesnāt suit you, feel free to change it. The idea heās 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 Iāve had with them. I say this to point out that āmoderate-ismā is an idea about how to think about ideas, and is beyond any singular ideology.
Iād like to start by remaking your argument, move onto what the āmoderate-ismā idea is, and then how it applies to your situation. Finally Iāll point out where I think the misunderstandings in your conversation were, and how they are similar to other āmoderatistā debates that Iāve had.
These are the important points youāve made: (You made a few others, but I think they were ancillary. I do address some of them later).
āIf you ādisagree lessā with vocal racists who have personal ties with White Nationalist groupsā¦ I might have some bad news for you.ā
And:
āThe problem is, āracism is not as important to me as some other issueā is still a position with its own moral implications.ā
As well as:
ā[Iām] not saying simply that all Republican voters are racist, [Iām] saying that Trumpism and the surging Christian-Nationalist movement is.ā
So, to more accurately convey your point: (and this is where the ācorrect meā part comes in).
āTo vote for Trump requires an inherently flawed point of view; itās 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.ā
Note that neither I nor Greg are actually arguing for Trump. Weāre 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 youāre assuming too much. A single point of view is extremely complex, and takes time to digest. If weāre talking about the millions of people who will vote for Trump, and their millions of different points-of-view, you certainly canāt 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-viewās that could be considered valid. We donāt know very much about this set, only that itās large. Therefore, to assume that this set of valid points-of-view doesnāt contain any which involve voting for Trump, would be to act on knowledge you donāt have.
The idea is more complicated than it seems at first glance. Itās more than just saying āother points-of-view could be valid.ā A better simplification would be: Donāt assume that there isnāt a valid point-of-view involving āXā type of belief. In more humanistic terms Iām saying, donāt completely rule out a system of beliefs because thereās a lot you might not understand.
The part of your conversation that reeled me in was when Greg made the following statement: āā¦ Imagine ā¦ 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.ā 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 wasnāt actually making that argument. He was simply illustrating that there could be a point-of-view that you havenāt considered; One which is also valid. The difficulty of trying to make the argument in that way, and one that Iāve 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; Itās possible we just havenāt come across it yet.
The reason the idea of āmoderate-ismā is important, is that it helps a person avoid making broad assumptions about what can and canāt be true. I think this is what Greg meant when he said āKeep an open mind,ā and ānot everything is black and white.ā Moderate-ism also avoids alienating the people in the group you arenāt a part of.
Ultimately most of us want the same things, we just have different ideaās about how to get there; Believing that is called āgood faith.ā Moderate-ism ties in by helping us work together instead of against each other.
Based on what youāve already said you may have the following rebuttal:
ā[Iām not arguing that their point of view isnāt valid, or that to vote for Trump is inherently wrong. Iām simply saying that] Trump is openly, unapologetically racist and sexist. If you choose to associate with him, you do have to own that.ā
Based on the prior discourse, this could be restated: āItās okay to vote for Trump, if you own that you are a morally reprehensible person.ā Most people donāt 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 argumentsā¦)
Anyway, I appreciate that youāve made it this far, and your willingness to discuss your opinions. Iām extremely interested in your thoughts on my āessayā. xD Again, I understand Iām cutting in. Please point out any and all mischaracterizations of your discussion.
Hi there! I donāt mind anyone joining in, itās an open forum. :)
I will mostly keep my response devoid of specific political discussion, and focused on āmoderate-ismā.
I understand your point in this regard, and Gregās, but I believe that it as an ideology (if you prefer to think of it as one) is based on several incorrect assumptions on your part, first and foremost being that you are intrinsically assuming I (or anyone else you encounter) am not fully familiar with conservativesā (or whatever opposing groupās) views on these subjects.
You are essentially just advocating for giving the benefit of the doubt. That is completely fair. Itās also something Iāve already done, many many times.
I would assert that if you do not have a threshold for deciding that your extended good-faith-assumption is not actually correct in a given instance, you do not have a workable ideology, just dangerous apologism. If you (or in this case, Greg) do have a threshold, I think it would be productive or even necessary to state where it lies, so that it can be openly interrogated whether that threshold has been crossed.
First off, I am not assuming anything, I am extremely familiar with the points of view of many different groups of conservatives, and have discussed these issues at length with them. And while I understand the knee-jerk emotional reaction that āmillions of people canāt be wrongā, if you step back a moment youāll realize this is not at all true. Millions of people around the world are racist, sexist, imperialist, supremacist, etc. Itās often not their fault, itās just their environment, but that is a reason, not an excuse.
I stated several times that I do not believe all Republicans are racist, and I would add that many who are, are not so knowingly. But many are openly racist, and all of them are, whether they like it or not, following an ideology that is being led by a racist. That tends to attract other racists, greatly increasing their concentration, and also normalizes racism among the group, which makes it very easy to be and to be around open racism without realizing it, much less interrogating it. If you are assuming that the ratio of racists must be even across all groups, that is a very incorrect and flawed assumption. Groups make different biases welcome or unwelcome by their own ideologies and actions.
Iām a white guy with a very full beard that wears jeans, work boots, and t-shirts. Believe me when I say, I have seen many times, in many places, just how fast the bigotry comes out as soon as itās just people who look like me, and who assume they are safely in fellow (conservative) company.
But secondly, why is assuming a group is not bad, more valid than assuming it is? No assumptions should be acted on without verification, so purely from a standpoint of assessing a group, why is the positive starting point only valid? I would argue that you should assume both ways, and see which assumption holds up to the scrutiny of facts better.
āIf they actually arenāt bad, what am I missing? If I assume an unknown factor is present, does that match the facts?ā
āIf they are actually bad, what would that look like and mean? Does that match the facts?ā
Yes, but he was attempting to do it by using an example he assumed I would not have encountered, which was just another an incorrect assumption. Assuming your own ignorance is a useful exercise to a point when it comes to interrogating your own assumptions and viewpoints about another group, but only insofar as you do not have actual evidence to the contrary. Which is what the Intercept article was attempting to demonstrate that we have, about Trumpers.
Sure. But once again, what is your threshold for finally saying, āokay, yes, this is a bad groupā? You canāt just keep assuming that everyone is only good, otherwise youāre just serving to cover for bad people.
Which is good, unless they are part of a group that should in fact be alienated. My impression from your comment is that you do not actually have a set methodology or threshold for determining whether a group is that.
To loop back to something I said earlier, itās very useful to assume your own ignorance when interrogating your biases and beliefs.
Itās not very useful to assume the ignorance of others, except to quash or dismiss criticism, which is what I see Greg as doing (though perhaps not intentionally).
Yeah, Iām done, youāre blocked. You donāt 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 doesnāt mean youāre in favor of the effects that caused that time period. Someone saying āI miss when gas was cheapā doesnāt mean āthey miss exploiting and bullying people internationally to get the cheapest possible oilā ā¦ they just want their cheap gas (and thatās 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 itās great that we got rid of leaded gas).
Trumpās a conman, he wonāt give them what they feel theyāve lost back; but they believe he will. This doesnāt equate to middle America being filled with racist. You canāt 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 youāre choosing to ignore the racist stuff, even if you disagree with it personally.
edit:
You donāt get to turn your family into an argument, but then also decide itās unassailable. Theyāre not your āinstant winā button against racism in the GOP.
Suggestion: donāt use your family when discussing politics.
There are also, as they say, five levels of ātruthā 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 wonāt tell you how I confirmed this to be true.
I know you mean well, but itās 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.
Itās not my problem that some people on the Internet want to insist theyāre the expert on everything, even people, people theyāve 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 ā¦ they need to be challenged (and first hand testimony is important but often seriously lacking).
If weāre just going to deny another personās experiences are real anytime they donāt align with our world view ā¦ whatās the point of even being on a forum?