By Roger House, Professor Emeritus, Emerson College
President Trump has stoked the fears of white working-class supporters through a politics of resentment over their declining fortunes in a pluralistic society. The administration has gutted diversity, equity and inclusion policies, abolished inclusive personnel programs in federal agencies, pressured the private sector to dismantle diversity reforms, and engaged in a campaign to weed out qualified minorities and women in favor of loyalists, sometimes with lesser qualifications.
But Trump’s politics of resentment cannot undo the fact that the country is undergoing an irreversible shift to a plural society. Simply put, the white population is aging and shrinking and there are too few white workers to meet the demands of the American economy. It means that governments, companies and institutions have a responsibility to develop a racially diverse workforce for the sake of the economic and political future of the nation.
Trump’s core supporters are struggling to comprehend their declining status in the economic system. Yet, the administration seems content to tout the merits of white men and scapegoat others in sweeping denunciations of diversity programs. The attacks on DEI are intended to reverse inclusive policies on race and gender in “every aspect of public and private life,” many of which companies implemented after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.
The anti-DEI movement is especially pronounced among an older cohort of white working class voters. They have been exposed to media that blame “woke” policies as a cause of their decline in social status. In fact, increasingly since the 1970s, the causes have been the transformative forces of deindustrialization, automation, recessions, technical retraining, civil rights reforms and the globalization of markets for labor and goods. Such forces have had profound effects on a class once favored in American society since the days of Jim Crow.
Under the segregation laws and entitlement practices, they grew to expect unending preferences for jobs, wages, housing, education, loans and social status. As the transformation took root, Country singer Merle Haggard, the late troubadour of that class, described the looming sense of despair in songs like “A Working Man Can’t Get Nowhere Today,” “Where Did America Go?” and “I’m a White Boy.”
Some corporations hit the brakes on the process of change after the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The decision narrowed the use of race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions, but did not eliminate it. After the Trump election, some corporations and nonprofits have stepped back from once highly acclaimed diversity policies. Among these are large employers such as Google, Target, Walmart, Amazon, Meta and McDonald’s. Other companies, however, continue to endorse DEI as good for business and society, including Costco, Delta, Coca-Cola and the NFL.
Today, the scapegoating of DEI policies has become overly polarizing and punitive. In response, leaders in the surging nonwhite population are organizing boycotts against companies that are abandoning their interests. Last week, for example, organizers of “Target Fast” called for a 40-day boycott to protest Target’s phased out of DEI initiatives. In particular, its program to hire, develop, and promote Black American employees and to contract with Black businesses. Consumers are urged to redirect their dollars to Black-owned businesses and service providers instead.
The equitable participation of Blacks, women, Hispanics, Asians and gay people in the workplace, and the federal agencies responsible for such initiatives, should not be stigmatized as an obstacle to white workers. Rather, according to advocates, the white working class would benefit from policies that promote good jobs, fair wages, education and wellness, sensible immigration reform, well-funded government support programs and civic involvement.
Meanwhile, Trump’s politics of resentment has stoked fears over the white working class being replaced by non-whites. In the 2020 Census, about 192 million Americans were counted as “white alone” (which excludes those with biracial or ethnic Hispanic heritage), about 58 percent of the national population. The “common” age of this group was a startling 58 years old, according to the PEW Research Center, compared to 39 years for the nation. The “common age” refers to the age at which half the group population is older and half is younger.
Moreover, the Census documented that the white population had declined by about 3 percent — some 5 million people — between 2010 and 2020. One reason for the decline is the mortality of the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. The falloff in births has been in response to priorities such as careers, lifestyle choices, child care costs, limited affordable housing and the suitability of mates, among others. Yet another reason is the new flexibility for people to self-identify as “white in combination” — namely those of biracial or Hispanic ethnic background.
In comparison to the white population, there was a common age of 11 years old for Hispanics, 27 for Blacks and 29 for Asians. The Hispanic population is 67 million, with strong growth through childbirth and immigration. The Asian population is 20 million and has the highest growth rate through immigration. The Black population is 48 million, including about 5 million that self-identify as either biracial or of Hispanic background. The native Black population is growing steadily, though slower than the others.
Clearly, the white population is rapidly aging and will need the services and tax support of non-white workers. As well, the governments, companies, and institutions will need to depend on a well-trained racially diverse workforce. The transformation is irreversible and needs to be skillfully managed; according to the Brookings Institution, white youths constituted slightly less than half of the cohort under the age of 15 as of 2019. Those youths are now in their twenties and represent the vanguard of a new plural society.
These shifts underscore the importance of DEI policies to foster inclusive classroom and workplace practices. Young people will not learn to work collaboratively of their own accord; moreover, they will reject being molded to the American identity of an aging and backward-looking political leadership.
Ultimately, the failure of the Trump administration and the Republican Congress to address the deeper causes of white working-class decline will come back to haunt them. The clock is ticking on the politics of white resentment as the GOP’s base of support fades from the scene.
The present and future is on the side of the pluralist society. This being the case, it is short-sighted for leaders of government, companies and institutions to abandon policies that develop the country’s workforce and citizens of the future.
Roger House is professor emeritus of American Studies at Emerson College and the author of “Blue Smoke: The Recorded Journey of Big Bill Broonzy” and “South End Shout: Boston’s Forgotten Music Scene in the Jazz Age.” His forthcoming book is “Five Hundred Years of Black Self-Governance: A Call to Conscience.” A version of the commentary was published in The Hill.
