For me, the more useful question isn’t why Trump voters voted for him, but, rather, why they wouldn’t. It seems self-evident that minorities would generally vote for the party that goes out of its way to consider — and protect — the rights of minorities. In a period of “existential” politics, that’s naturally what takes precedence over other concerns. Why would whites, or at least a large percentage of them, act any differently?
It has become common to assume a permanent Democratic majority in due time, as a result of irreversible demographic trends. In cruder terms, it amounts to longing for immigration and minority birth rates to erode white majorities on both the national and state levels. But this has profound implications, since it “practically compels whites to behave electorally like a minority constituency.” In this respect, white nationalism or white identity politics overlap with racism, but they are not quite the same thing.
After all, if I was a member of the so-called “white working class” rather than an American Muslim, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t have voted for Trump. This may make me a flawed person or even, as some would have it, a “racist.” But it would also make me rational, voting if not in my economic self-interest then at least in my emotional self-interest.