There’s an interesting article in The Atlantic that concerns the 2016 presidential election. They interviewed white working class voters and found that “economic anxiety” was not the reason people voted for Trump. In fact, quite the opposite.
“Evidence suggests financially troubled voters in the white working class were more likely to prefer Clinton over Trump.”
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“People who said their finances are only in fair or poor shape were nearly twice as likely to support Clinton compared to those who feel more economically secure.”
This makes sense. Clinton had a coherent logical plan to help workers who had lost their jobs or were in financial straits while Trump was full of wind signifying nothing. But this finding also flies in the face of everything we’ve been told about WWC voters over the last six months.
So why did white working class voters vote for Trump? The two words that carry a lot of freight are “culture” and “anxiety.”
What are the WWC’s cultural anxieties?
Sixty-eight percent of white working-class voters said the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence.
And nearly half agreed with the statement, “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country.”
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Nearly two-thirds of the white working class say American culture has gotten worse since the 1950s.
And they don’t like foreigners.
The second factor was immigration. Contrary to popular narratives, only a small portion—just 27 percent—of white working-class voters said they favor a policy of identifying and deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally. Among the people who did share this belief, Trump was wildly popular: 87 percent of them supported the president in the 2016 election.
Okay, so far we’ve got bigotry. The WWC are “anxious” because things aren’t the way they were in the Fifties. We all remember the Fifties, right? Racism, segregation, antisemitism, extreme conformity, McCarthyism, the Red Scare, HUAC, a woman’s place is the home. The good old days!
The final factor was the cost of college:
Finally, 54 percent of white working-class Americans said investing in college education is a risky gamble, including 61 percent of white working-class men. White working-class voters who held this belief were almost twice as likely as their peers to support Trump.
This actually doesn’t make any sense because the WWC, by definition, doesn’t have a college degree. What I think this is picking up on is anger among the WWC that they aren’t doing better. And they attribute their problems to affirmative action, liberal politicians, political correctness, discrimination against white people, etc.
Finally, they are fiercely tribal:
Self-described Republicans were 11 times more likely than their non-Republican peers to choose Trump.
What this means is that the idea that Democrats can persuade substantially more of the WWC to vote Democratic by pitching income equality is nonsense. These voters have collected decades of grievances. They figure their lives are crap and it’s because of immigrants and minorities and the politicians they think cater to these groups (that would be the Democrats). They’ve been trained to fear the government and hate minorities (or is it the other way around?). In their view government programs such as free college, single-payer health care, and free preschool are just giveaways to the blacks.
As the country continues to be come more ethnically diverse, this group will become more both more embattled (at least in their own minds) and more embittered. Trump got two million more votes than Romney (even though he got fewer votes among white college educated voters) because he made a rather skillful appeal to hatred, anger, and bigotry. Many of the people who voted for him did so not because they expect Trump to make their lives better (they don’t really believe that can happen), but that he’ll make the lives of the people they hate worse.
Good luck winning them over with offers of free college.
www.theatlantic.com/...