For almost a year now we've been subjected to outrageous actions from the Trump administration. It can be hard to comprehend it all and attempting to do so is exhausting. That's why I appreciated an article by Thomas Zimmer where he connected the dots on several of the most deplorable items, including that:
- Trump called Somali immigrants "garbage."
- Trump permanently paused migration from what he called "shithole countries."
- The administration has attempted to overturn birthright citizenship.
- The administration published a National Security Strategy stating that European countries face "civilizational erasure" as a result of their immigration policies.
- VP Vance and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) made speeches spelling out a "blood and soil" definition of what it means to be American.
- Vance/neo-Nazis spread a lie that Haitians were eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio.
By now the common theme of these items is perhaps obvious. Here's how Zimmer connects the dots:
[The president] is not just a grumpy old man indulging in racist stereotypes, but a politician committed to a worldview shaped and organized by racism and white supremacy. What is on display here is not just personal bigotry. Donald Trump pursues a political project for which white nationalism serves as an organizing principle...
Donald Trump is deeply convinced that powerful white men like him have a right to be at the top, that it is their prerogative to exert power over others. And how dare anyone object, complain, have the audacity to curtail the ability of men like him to do as they please.
To say that race is an organizing principle that structures the way Donald Trump perceives of the world is not to claim it is the only one. Gender is crucially important, as is wealth. What Donald Trump believes in is a political and societal order of sharp, brutal hierarchies. That’s why Trump is so perfect as an avatar for today’s Right and their anti-egalitarian, anti-pluralistic project that runs on radicalizing grievance. The white nationalism, the patriarchal domination, the oligarchic control, the Christian supremacism: They are all tied together.
As Zimmer points out, this is not just about Donald Trump. These "sharp, brutal hierarchies" are what is animating the right wing today. As one former Republican official put it, "I’m hoping these new conservatives are mutants, but I’m not so sure about that anymore."
Of course, most of this has been evident since Trump's first term. The new piece is the administration's National Security Strategy (NSS), which applies the so-called "great replacement theory" beyond the borders of the United States and onto the rest of the globe. Much as the changing demographics in this country became the impetus for electing Trump the first time, right wingers are now fear-mongering about a global threat to "Western civilization" (ie, white people).
For example, Nick Fuentes reacted to the NSS by calling it "an explicit acknowledgement of white genocide from the highest level." Perhaps you've noticed that there is no mass movement to kill white people, so WTH is he talking about?
By way of explanation, Elon Musk retweeted this with the comment: "If current trends continue, Whites will go from being a small minority of world population today to virtually extinct!"
White people are on the verge of extinction
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) December 2, 2025
Global population of white people:
100 years ago roughly 35%
50 years ago roughly 20%
25 years ago 15%
Today just 8%
White people are the minorities and must take their countries back. No more tolerance. No more suicidal empathy pic.twitter.com/uYLgEEHnTU
It's not that there is a mass movement to kill white people, it's the old white supremacist trope that "they are replacing us." So let's unpack that one for a moment.
The first problem with those numbers becomes obvious if you do an internet search asking for the percentage of the global population that is white. Other than white nationalists like Musk, you'll find that no one really knows because there is no consistent definition of what it means to be "white." As an example, up until last year, the U.S. census counted people from the Middle East and North Africa as "white."
On a somewhat more humorous note, this is how one person responded to Musk:
The black figures on that map from WallStreetApes represent what Trump refers to as "shithole" countries. They are concentrated in what is sometimes referred to as the "global south." It is true that these countries have been wracked with extreme poverty. But over the last three decades, that has started to change.
Notice the dramatic decreases in Asia, but not a lot of change in Africa. However, when we look at the 20 countries with the highest GDP growth in 2025, twelve of them are in Africa, seven are in Asia, and one is in South America. Here's the big picture:
It is also true that, due to higher birth rates, the population of the global south is expected to grow much faster than the rest of the world.
- Reducing extreme poverty from 1.9 billion people to 736 million.
- Cutting maternal, infant, and child mortality rates in half.
- Raising global life expectancy from 65 years to 72.
We now know that those DOGE cuts have led to the "public man-made death" of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of whom are children.
As I wrote back in 2017, the gains against extreme poverty were also attributed in large part to globalization and the advent of free trade. So there is a strong connection between Trump's tariffs and white nationalism.
In the end, what is scaring these white supremacists is that black and brown people are just beginning to threaten white Western European dominance - and they'll do almost anything to stop that from happening.
One of Trump's enablers, Christopher Caldwell, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times lauding the NSS. He blamed the United States for the so-called "threat to Western Civilization" and in doing so, might have given us the antidote. He referred to the "three and a half decades of American-style liberal international order, under the banner of 'C’mon, people now, smile on your brother.'”
So perhaps we should be paying more attention to this Youngbloods tune from 1967 and the choice we currently face between love and fear.
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