Straight Dope 3/24/2023: What was neoliberalism, is it dead, and was it really so bad?

I don’t think you want to take ALL the personal responsibility for racial resentment, but I would take your statement a step further–“almost exclusively” rather than “primarily” driven by racial resentment. Without racism, Trump never emerges from the low single-digit rankings in the GOP primaries in 2015-6. I’ve never bought ANY of this bushwah about economic insecurity blablabla. Trump voters are racists, pure and simple, and side issues are just flimsy disguises for their racism, which they usually don’t even try to hide. I’m appalled by how many Americans identify with racism, but the truth is the truth.

To Trump himself, racism is just a means to an economic end. It’s how he gathers mass support, and he throws a little actual racism (and sexism, and homophobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, etc) to his base, red meat to a pack of starving dogs, but he’s all about unfettered dog eat dog capitalism.