He Got 70 million Votes

By Nana Dadzie Ghansah

So what drove the ascent of Donald J. Trump?

I have teased out six main reasons why some 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Over 70 million did this time around.

Diana C. Mutz, in her 2018 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pointed out the most crucial reason — cultural anxiety. Daniel Cox and his group came to the same conclusion in their Public Religion Research Institute survey of more than 3,000 people.
Many whites were worried this country was losing its white identity. This fear was quite notable among white men who felt they were becoming an endangered species. They hated seeing all the non-white immigrants everywhere and hearing strange languages. Feminism was also seen as a threat. The emergence of ISIS did not help matters. Thus when Trump called Mexicans rapist and promised to build a wall, he assuaged a fear and garnered support. His anti-globalism stance also jelled with those who wanted the US to take a stronger and more belligerent attitude towards China and for the US to assume a more isolationist position on the world stage.

Though both Mutz and Cox did not think economic anxiety played a role, I think it did. There are many places in the Ohio Valley where lack of jobs and a future have driven many Americans to drugs and…