Racists: They were there all along

 I live in a state that votes Republican governors. It goes about 60% Republicans, 40% Democrats. I live in a city, so we are closer to 50/50. That still means that one out of two neighbors will fully support a white supremacist candidate, if that is the Republican candidate.

We are giving Trump a bit too much credit, though his cult of personality also appealed to these voters.

This thing has been developing since Reagan, amplified by Fox news and the internet. Before that republicans had boring ideas: lower the taxes and support law enforcement. Which back then was white policemen.

The segment of our country now supporting this "white people are being hurt" idea now makes up 40-45% of voters, depending on who is president and what is going on in the world (Ukraine, etc.) and gas prices.

John Oliver covered the Fox news thing well:

Link:

https://youtu.be/XMGxxRRtmHc

And the "white working class"? They were racists too. They may have voted Democrat when they had a union job. Democrats are important in local elections for that and for other things. Once that union job was gone, there was no reason to vote Democrat anymore. In their racism, the working classes were barely tolerant of sexual minorities as well. Anything outside their white Christian bubble was alien.

Moving away from racism and jobs, the white working class also is not quite so liberal as college educated Democrats. It's easy for the GOP trolls and congressmen tot raise hell about parents' rights, gay teachers,  the masks and vaccination thing and all the local stuff dealing with school boards. Those are not items that congressmen and senators deal with, those are local issues. But the party has been well marked and labeled as "exrteme liberals" in matters that are quite trivial to the actual lives of these people.