Throughout the early years of Donald Trump’s presidency there was much hand-wringing over the voter sentiments that propelled him into the nation’s highest office. Was it economic anxiety? Displeasure with the political ruling class? Maybe… I don’t know… racism?

By the end of his presidential term we had a definitive answer: Yes, it was plain old American racism. It’s very clearly reflected in the voting patterns seen in the 2020 presidential election.

When looking at the 2020 election through the lens of our nation’s new congressional districts, Trump won 208 congressional districts, only 11 of those hold nonwhite majorities. Of the districts with the highest support for Trump (listed in the table above) four are among the nation’s whitest congressional districts.

Statistics Suggest Racism

Using the data from our newly drawn congressional districts, I calculated the correlation between a district’s Nonwhite population and support for Donald Trump. The two datasets returned an r-value of -0.64. (A quick look at Statistics for Dummies says that an r-value close to -0.7 is a “A strong downhill (negative) linear relationship”)

First, let’s say it together: Correlation does not imply causation.

But this does prove that there is a connection between support for Trump and Whiteness that cannot be ignored. If you were to ask them yourself, conservatives would immediately chastise you for “making this about race.” But one look at the political figures they worship will prove the ways in which the Republican party fully embraces racist rhetoric.

“There is a world in which European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe. Now that is a mixed-race world…. We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.”

—Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban, July 2022

Why Conservatives Hunger for Hungary

This past weekend American conservatives convened at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference and had quite the “mask off” moment. One of the headline speakers for the weekend was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a seemingly odd choice to anyone who hasn’t climbed down the conservative crazy-hole.

Viktor Orban has been lauded by American conservatives for instituting “soft fascism” in his home country. After his party obtained enough seats in government to amend the country’s constitution in 2010, Orban eroded democracy by enshrining what he called a “central political forcefield.” This involved gerrymandering parliamentary districts to tilt in his party’s favor and instituting new term limits on judges to make room for Orban’s favored judicial picks. The country’s media landscape was also forcefully reshaped thanks to a new media board that selectively withheld ad dollars and blocked mergers of media outlets that failed to portray Orban’s party favorably. (By 2017, 90 percent of state all Hungarian media was either owned by the state or an ally of Orban’s party.)

What attracted conservatives was the way Orban successfully instituted these changes underneath a democratic electoral system. On paper, Hungary is still a democracy but in practice, Orban’s changes have given his party almost absolute power. Opposition candidates are forced to run in slanted districts, with few resources, against a party that controls nearly all sources of domestic information. This is the future American conservatives dream of and are fighting tooth and nail to implement.

The Great Replacement Theory

The most dangerous facet of Viktor Orban’s political perspective is his commitment on governing around the “Great Replacement” theory. To hear Orban tell it in his own words:

“Part of the picture of the decade of war facing us will be recurring waves of suicidal policy in the Western world. One such suicide attempt that I see is the great European population replacement program, which seeks to replace the missing European Christian children with migrants, with adults arriving from other civilizations.”

—Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban, May 2022

Yes, this is the same Great Replacement theory cited by the Buffalo shooter (and many violent terrorists who came before.) This theory is being embraced in America, not only by extremists on the American right but even by prominent figures like Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. It received a round of applause during Orban’s speech at CPAC.

It’s imperative to highlight that Hungary has a much larger ethnic majority than the United States: 97% of Hungarian citizens are ethnic Hungarians and barely 2% of its population is foreign-born. This in no way legitimizes Orban’s hateful rhetoric in the Hungarian context, but it does expose how poorly suited this strategy is for the United States. Our country is racing toward “minority-majority” status as barely 61% of American citizens currently identify as White.

This is both a blessing and a curse for America’s future. While it means that the target audience for this message is shrinking, it also promotes a dangerous sense of urgency for those that believe in it. The militaristic language that these extremists are using cannot be ignored as they’re clearly telling us that they’re ready to take back the country by any means necessary.

Leftover Links

• Know the Republican politicians who are actively spreading the Great Replacement theory as an electoral strategy.

• Dive deeper into how democracy died in Hungary.