Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Why nativism? Why Trump?

Why now, and not in the 1990s, when immigration was much higher?

Here are a few theories.

2/The White Despair theory: Declining economic prospects and social dysfunction (opiates, family breakdown) in exurbs and small towns made white people in those towns start scapegoating immigrants for their problems.

3/Evidence in support of the White Despair theory: County-level correlation between opioid use and Trump vote.
npr.org/sections/healt…

4/More evidence: County-level correlation between Chinese import competition and Trump vote.
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…

5/Evidence against: Nativism traditionally does well when the economy is growing. Like in the 1920s.

Nativism didn't take over the GOP during 2001-2012, when these problems were more acute.

Little voter-level correlation of economic anxiety with Trump vote.

6/Next, The Diffusion Theory: In the 90s, immigrants were overwhelmingly clustered in coastal urban enclaves and the Southwest. In the intervening years, Hispanics and Asians diffused to the Midwest and Northeast, creating the perception of a sudden invasion.

7/Evidence for this: White voter shift from Romney to Trump came in areas where Latino population grew rapidly.

vox.com/the-big-idea/2…

8/Next, The Obama Theory: Obama's status as the first black president had already heightened racial fears, and his 2012 victory - where he decisively lost whites but won Hispanics and Asians by record amounts - created a fear of ethnic bloc voting.

9/Evidence for this theory: Voter-level correlation between negative attitudes toward black people and support for Trump.

thenation.com/article/econom…

10/Finally, the Cultural Change Theory: In the 90s, the Religious Right was still going strong, but after the gay marriage defeat it collapsed, leading to fears that American culture was changing too fast - and that nonwhite immigrants were abetting this by voting for Democrats.

11/Evidence for this theory: This is what the Trumpians actually say.

claremont.org/crb/basicpage/…

12/Of course, these four theories aren't mutually exclusive, and we might have just seen a perfect storm of factors.

13/That still leaves the question of how best to fight nativism.

Perhaps a combination of
A) improving the material situation of rural & exurban whites,
B) waiting for xenophobia to subside,
and
C) illustrating how bad Trump's policies are, and what a horrible person he is?

14/As for the impact of anti-black racism, I don't know what to do about that...we've been fighting that for many decades.

And as for cultural change, I don't know how to address that fear; America seems dead-set on becoming less traditionalist and less religious.

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