I think it’s a misconception that he’s manufactured this fear of the other or of being overrun. For a myriad of reasons, demographics have been shifting away from a white majority, and people in the red areas don’t need Trump or any other politician to point this out to them. For anecdotal purposes, I’ll talk about the small town in Ohio where I grew up. Like many other towns in middle America, this town has had a sort of soft segregation where there had been a “black neighborhood” for years. The town was probably about 95%-5% white-to-black when I left in 1989. Over the last 30 years, a Hispanic community slowly emerged in that town. It’s only about 3% of the entire town’s population, but when the number had been 0%, the locals (including members of my family who seem to talk about it regularly when I go home) have noticed.
All these tiny towns have seen a small but noticeable shift in their communities, and it’s created a slow-boiling irrational anxiety that they’re being overrun. Now comes along a loudmouthed presidential candidate whose brash persona they know and trust based solely on having seen him play this character on their televisions for decades. This candidate finds that raw nerve of anxiety, and he pokes and prods it to the point that he cultivates it into a base of supporters foaming at the mouth over the “invasion”/“infestation” that they already believe is happening. Trump didn’t necessarily make them fear being overrun; he just exacerbated it and then exploited it. His strategy obviously worked considering where he’s sitting.
