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Sunday, May 8th, 2016

The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support

Author:     Nate Silver
Source:     FiveThirtyEight
Publication Date:     May 3, 2016 at 2:45 PM
Link: The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support
Stephan:   This is a very important article because with data it refutes the meme. Although some are on the whole Trump voters are not down on their luck. To the contrary they are on average more affluent than either Clinton or Sanders voters. Here are some facts. This is important because if this is not recognized an accurate assessment of what's happening is not possible.
A vendor sells Donald Trump t-shirts before a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Carmel, Ind., Monday, May 2, 2016. Credit: Michael Conroy/AP

A vendor sells Donald Trump t-shirts before a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Carmel, Ind., Monday, May 2, 2016.
Credit: Michael Conroy/AP

It’s been extremely common for news accounts to portray Donald Trump’s candidacy as a “working-class” rebellion against Republican elites. There are elements of truth in this perspective: Republican voters, especially Trump supporters, are unhappy about the direction of the economy. Trump voters have lower incomes than supporters of John Kasich or Marco Rubio. And things have gone so badly for the Republican “establishment” that the party may be facing an existential crisis.

But the definition of “working class” and similar terms is fuzzy, and narratives like these risk obscuring an important and perhaps counterintuitive fact about Trump’s voters: As compared with most Americans, Trump’s voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in […]

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