Nothing Can Stop U.S. From Becoming More Diverse

The current anti-immigration efforts by Trump and his Republican cohorts are a futile effort to stave off the demographic changes happening to the population in this country. They are afraid of an America where Whites are the minority, and White privilege no longer exists. But they can't stop it, no matter how hard they try. The change is happening, whether they like it or not.

The chart above shows the increase in diversity between 2016 and 2017 as noted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Here is what's happening -- as reported by Think Progress:

As the nation grows older, it’s also becoming more racially and ethnically diverse.  “Nationally, the population of all race and ethnic groups, except for the non-Hispanic white alone group, grew between July 1, 2016, and July 1, 2017,” the Census statement said.

Specifically, the Census Bureau reported:

• The Hispanic population increased 2.1 percent to 58.9 million.
• The black or African-American population increased 1.2 percent to 47.4 million.
• The Asian population increased 3.1 percent to 22.2 million.
• The American Indian or Alaska Native population increased 1.3 percent to 6.8 million.
• The Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander population increased 2.1 percent to 1.6 million.
• The population of those Two or More Races increased 2.9 percent to 8.7 million.
• The white alone-or-in-combination population increased 0.5 percent to 257.4 million.
• The non-Hispanic white alone population decreased .02 percent to 197.8 million.

Of course, none of these revelations are particularly earth-shaking. Keen demographers and social scientists have been tracking the so-called “browning of America,” for years.

But in the current political environment, it bears repeating over and over, if for no other reason than to remind more Americans of the inevitability of change. Soon — within the lifetimes of the vast majority of Americans alive today — the U.S. will no longer be a white-majority nation.

And that’s why this column is directed to Trump’s MAGA crowd, which seems hell-bent on returning the country to some idealized era of the 1950s or earlier, when white men were the unquestioned arbiters and beneficiaries of the nation’s politics, culture, and economy.

Indeed, the hateful atmosphere brought about by Trumpism and echoed in archly right-wing media has its roots in a vocal white nationalist movement, which seized on the president’s embrace of their racist rhetoric as permission to openly act on impulses that previously were tucked away from public view.  . . .

For all their bluster and bravado, however, white nationalists are whistling past their own graveyards. The numbers and unrelenting facts of demography stare in the face of those who believe they can restore some non-existant glory of white supremacy.

Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (PREE), estimates that by the year 2043 — about 25 years from now — the U.S. will reach the tipping point when the country transitions to a majority-minority population. Among working-class Americans — made up of working adults without a college degree — she estimates the tipping point may arrive nearly a decade sooner, possibly by 2032, . . .

The sooner most Americans come to terms with this reality, the sooner the public will rally support and encourage politicians to deal with the changing demographics from a position of national strength, and not as the fearsome dilution of white superiority. One thing is certain: the changes coming to America aren’t going to suddenly shift into reverse, no matter how loudly Trump, his subservient congressional leaders, and white nationalists complain.