At some stage during this century, perhaps near its midpoint, white people might no longer amount to an absolute majority of the US population. Whether or not they should mind, enough do to disturb the politics of the republic and at times its very peace.

A feeling of racial dispossession animated at least the fringes of the Tea Party movement a decade ago. There is no accounting for the political rise of President Donald Trump without some reference to the same anxieties. From what we know, and with due caution in asserting cause and effect, the “replacement” of his race aggrieved the man who murdered 22 people in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday.

How the US deals with its diversification is of weight to the rest of the west, because other countries, if not to the same extent, nor at the same pace, will follow. It matters, then, if Americans succumb to despondency — to a sense that turmoil is the way of the future.