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CULTURE✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
White nationalism’s appeal runs deeper than partisan politics
Filed 1h ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk
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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Rjcastillo · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Political scientists surveyed nearly 8,000 non-Hispanic white Americans from 2021 to 2025 and found roughly 5% endorsed white nationalist ideology, defined as belief in maintaining a white majority, white cultural superiority, and white political dominance. Support jumped to just over 13%, about 1 in 7, among white men under 30, more than double the rate among young women and far above the 2% recorded among men 65 and older.
The strongest predictors were not partisan: having best friends known only online, personal hardships like job loss or divorce, and living in economically distressed counties with high rates of poverty, unemployment, and deaths of despair all correlated with higher support. White Democrats and liberals were significantly less likely to endorse the ideology than Republicans and conservatives, but researchers found a notable reservoir of support among people unsure of their political identity.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
A number like one in seven young white men isn't a fringe statistic you can wave off as a few loud guys with flags, it's a sign something in the ordinary machinery of growing up and finding your place has broken down for a lot of people at once. The researchers' finding about online-only friendships rings truer than anything about social media minutes logged, since the real damage seems to come from having nobody around who can push back on an idea in person. Distressed counties breeding distressed politics is about as old a story as this country has, the only new part is the chat window it travels through now.
