Considering this history, it should have come as no surprise that the election of the first Black president and anxiety over shifting racial demographics due to immigration—including a widely publicized projection that white people will be a racial minority by the mid-twenty-first century—would be followed by a rise in white nationalism, hate crimes, and vigilante violence, as well as the election of politicians like Donald Trump, a man who rose to power by exploiting racial fears and divisions and sought to maintain power by thwarting democracy.
