We Have a Problem With White Men: They Support Trump

We Have a Problem With White Men: They Support Trump

We Have a Problem With White Men: They Support Trump

Kai Wright on misogyny and racism, Jill Lepore on Trump’s place in history, and Michael Kazin on Hubert Humphrey.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Sixty-two percent of white men voted for Trump, 31 percent for Clinton. Kai Wright has our analysis—he’s host of WNYC’s podcast The United States of Anxiety, and he’s also a columnist for The Nation. It’s easy to get confused by the crosscurrents of misogyny and racism and xenophobia, he argues; they are not discrete issues but rather “the interlocking tools of white men’s minority rule.”

Also: Trump’s place in American history. Jill Lepore of the Harvard history department and The New Yorker talks about her new book These Truths, which starts in 1492 with Christopher Columbus and ends in 2016 with Donald Trump.

And we’ll recall the 1968 presidential election, when Richard Nixon won, and many of our current problems began. The man who almost defeated Nixon was Hubert Humphrey, the onetime Minnesota senator who had become LBJ’s vice president. Anti-war activists hated Hubert Humphrey in 1968—Michael Kazin explains.

An urgent message from the Editors

As the editors of The Nation, it’s not usually our role to fundraise. Today, however, we’re putting out a special appeal to our readers, because there are only hours left in 2025 and we’re still $20,000 away from our goal of $75,000. We need you to help close this gap. 

Your gift to The Nation directly supports the rigorous, confrontational, and truly independent journalism that our country desperately needs in these dark times.

2025 was a terrible year for press freedom in the United States. Trump launched personal attack after personal attack against journalists, newspapers, and broadcasters across the country, including multiple billion-dollar lawsuits. The White House even created a government website to name and shame outlets that report on the administration with anti-Trump bias—an exercise in pure intimidation.

The Nation will never give in to these threats and will never be silenced. In fact, we’re ramping up for a year of even more urgent and powerful dissent. 

With the 2026 elections on the horizon, and knowing Trump’s history of false claims of fraud when he loses, we’re going to be working overtime with writers like Elie Mystal, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Jeet Heer, Kali Holloway, Katha Pollitt, and Chris Lehmann to cut through the right’s spin, lies, and cover-ups as the year develops.

If you donate before midnight, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donor. We hope you’ll make our work possible with a donation. Please, don’t wait any longer.

In solidarity,

The Nation Editors

Ad Policy
x