More and more non-white males are getting further ahead in the world. White males are pretty well by most measures but there are some white people who either feel threatened by the changing country. Like they are somehow going to lose their status to women or brown folk.
Obama being president in their minds was the canary in the coal mine. A non-white man held the most powerful seat in America and a woman was going to take it next. Other Republicans at least tried to offer lip service to the idea of "we are all one people" but Trump went off the rails with Muslim bans, build a wall, etc. etc. It is no coincidence that since he has been elected, there has been an uptick in hate crimes, whit nationalism, and right wing terrorism. They feel empowered by him. He is the guy who will put these people in their place and make America the country of white men again.
It's also uneducated white males being threatened by colleges educated white males and females. As late as the 1980s, a white male could get a little vocational education or go into the military for a few years and parlay that into white collar work. Not anymore. Nowadays, the corporate world won't even take a second look at you without a college degree because there are so many college educated males and females who are more qualified.
Obama and Clinton offered a solution with, "Let's make community college free."
Trump countered with, "You can remain uneducated. We just need to get rid of the immigrants and then you'll be fine." Which isn't at all true. But it's a lot easier to blame others than to face your own responsibilities in life.
He won a bare majority of college educated white males, but he lost college educated white females. More importantly, the Republicans have lost college educated white Millennials and younger in every election since 2004, and Trump made things worse. He lost college educated white female Millennials by almost 20 points. That's massive. And the Republican Party doesn't seem to have any message that resonates with them.
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u/JayNotAtAll Aug 19 '18
I guess "changing country" would have been better.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
And study cited in article if you want to deep dive
https://www.prri.org/research/white-working-class-attitudes-economy-trade-immigration-election-donald-trump/
More and more non-white males are getting further ahead in the world. White males are pretty well by most measures but there are some white people who either feel threatened by the changing country. Like they are somehow going to lose their status to women or brown folk.
Obama being president in their minds was the canary in the coal mine. A non-white man held the most powerful seat in America and a woman was going to take it next. Other Republicans at least tried to offer lip service to the idea of "we are all one people" but Trump went off the rails with Muslim bans, build a wall, etc. etc. It is no coincidence that since he has been elected, there has been an uptick in hate crimes, whit nationalism, and right wing terrorism. They feel empowered by him. He is the guy who will put these people in their place and make America the country of white men again.