Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude said one of the biggest reasons white Americans cast their vote for President-elect Donald Trump is because many of them are concerned with preserving “whiteness” in the United States.
Glaude made his statements while appearing on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle” on Saturday. At the time, Ruhle asked Glaude his thoughts on whether or not “identity politics is silencing.”
“Even I can see in my social media feed in the last couple of days, these people are like, ‘Yeah, [Trump] was my guy,’” Ruhle said. “We’re hearing stories in the suburbs today, people are now putting Trump signs up.”
Glaude responded: “Yeah, I mean, in some ways … But, let’s be clear ‘Trumpism’ is a form of identity politics. We don’t want to say that ‘my beautiful white skin,’ remember? That’s what Trump said. Tucker Carlson saying it in Madison Square Garden, ‘We have been given permission to call B.S. on this woke-ism stuff,’ ‘We will no longer be made to feel guilty.’ That comes straight out of ‘we will not be replaced.”
That’s when Ruhle cut in to share a differing opinion: Americans, who may or may not have listened to what Trump and his supporters have publicly said over the years, are generally concerned with the country’s economy and believe the president-elect is the right person to fix it.
“There’s a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump who didn’t listen to the rally and who don’t know who Tucker Carlson is, but who are super unhappy about inflation, that they can’t afford their lives and they voted for him and they’re not buying into fascism,” Ruhle shared.
While Glaude said he understands Ruhle’s point, he broke down how the country’s racial demographics have changed over the years, triggering fear among white Americans who still remain the majority population but have decreased in numbers in the last decade.
Watch a clip from the segment below:
Finally Professor Eddie Glaude of Princeton, confronted the issue as to why white people voted for Trump on a so-called liberal station like @MSNBC, you should see unless you too want to remain in the closet about the reality of what America is. It’s about time. pic.twitter.com/V9imvm6F5F
— Mr. Reynolds (@MrReynolds52) November 9, 2024
Per the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau, the white population decreased by 8.6% from 2010 to 2020. The Hispanic or Latino communities have increased to 18.7% of the total U.S. population, Black Americans accounted for 12.4% of the population and the Asian community made up 6%. As of 2023, white Americans make up 75.3% of the country’s population, per the U.S. Census.
“I get that, but I think they have an idea that whenever the incoherence of the country comes into full view, the tricky magic of falling into place, falling behind a notion of whiteness that can hold off all — the reason why all hell is breaking loose economically is because big government is putting its thumb on the scale and redistributing resources from deserving people to underserving people, so there’s this sense of that whiteness is under threat,” Glaude explained, mentioning the rise of more inclusive representation in television. “The demographic shifts. The country isn’t ‘all these racially ambiguous children on Cheerios commercials are confusing the hell out of me.’”
Ruhle tried to reiterate that she feels Americans “voted because their life’s too damn expensive,” but Glaude chimed in once more to question why voters would choose someone like Trump, who has a controversial and checkered past, including 34 indictments and a felony conviction.
“You’re telling me Stephanie that all of these people who believe that bread is too high and eggs are too high, that they voted for a convicted felon, a guy who said ‘we can grab the p.’ They voted for this guy,” Glaude said.
Ruhle responded saying there are many people who don’t read Trump-related news or simply don’t pay attention to politics, period.
“I’m not defending it, but I think there are tons of people that don’t pay attention to — and I’m not defending it —pay attention to politics at all,” Ruhle said. “While we live in the most prosperous [country] in the world, people are saying, ‘Life’s not fair, I’m not doing well, my son’s still living in the basement, I can’t seem to get a job, I don’t like the status quo, I’m voting for something else,’ and he was the person.”
In response, Glaude closed out his remarks by telling Ruhle that he feels she may be wary of accepting what he feels is the push behind several white Americans votes.
“I love you to life, but I do not believe that. I cannot believe that, and the reason I think you believe it is because you don’t want to believe that that’s what’s really motivating them,” Glaude said. “That’s always the case, we — people don’t want to believe what the country actually is, because if we believe it, they’re going to have to confront what’s in them. I don’t believe that. They voted for a crook, a person who they know is stealing from, just doing everything to undermine the country that they love, and then they’re telling us the B.S. that it’s economics. We know that’s not true. We know it’s not true, and we gotta raise our kids in this s—t.”
Tuesday night, Trump was named the official President-elect after winning 51% (71,960,302 votes) of the popular vote and the Electoral College. Here’s a look at the voter turnout across racial and gender demographics below:
