How do we know anything at all about the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020? Are they mostly racist? Sexist, homophobic, xenophobic? Are they white working-class males who suffer from status anxiety as the U.S. population grows more diverse? Are Trump supporters wealthier voters or poorer? Are they anti-elites, or elites themselves? Are working people becoming the core of the Republican Party, as Senator Josh Hawley proclaimed on election night? Or did Joe Biden bring them back into the Democratic fold?
Answers to these questions traditionally come from exit polls supplemented by what we hear from political commentators, labor union officials, and community leaders. An NBC poll (February 21, 2021) reported that the news is not good for labor progressives:
The GOP is rapidly becoming the blue-collar party.
In the last decade, the percentage of blue-collar voters who call themselves Republicans has grown by 12 points. At the same time, the number in that group identifying […]
When I recommended a Hmong project as also of interest to her and her Native friends she rejected it out of hand. As political tacticians are pitting white workers against immigrants the same fear of scarcity applies.
Interestingly, this article ignores the role of religion and the growth or Apocalyptic Christianity among the White working population. There are many Americans who are already on the doomsday train, which means, for example, that stopping Abortion is more important to them than social welfare.
Secondly, American workers are angry because the fundamental lie of America, that wealth is obtainable, has finally been coming home to roost during the post WW2 Era. What Americans have never understood about capitalism is that labor will move to where the jobs are and therefore that wages will always be under pressure. Trump and his ilk can always blame the “other” for that pressure. Until recent times, the major other in America, the Black and the Hispanic day worker, were so segregated that the White working man was protected from reality. Among other forces Civil Rights legislation plus NAFTA and similar trade agreements has ended that protection. Finally, as with ancient Rome and more modern England, the endless wars have introduced huge numbers of workers, documented and undocumented, from abroad. So, American working class Whites are now facing reality.
And in the meantime, Q’Anon’s numbers are falling.