Is the Heart and Soul of Trump’s MAGA Base Really the White Working Class? The corporate media and all too many politicians are blaming working people for the rise of Trump and MAGA. Yet, if we open our (lying) eyes a bit more, we can’t miss the massive horde of lawyers and businesspeople who serve as Trump’s enthusiastic enablers. Spoiler LES LEOPOLD Jan 16, 2024Common Dreams When we hear the words “MAGA base” we think “white working class.” Right? “I love the poorly educated.” —Donald J. Trump, February 24, 2016 “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” —Hillary Clinton, September 10, 2016 Eight years after Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump made this connection part of our conventional wisdom, the idea is still presented as gospel in the New York Times. On January 15, 2024, its front page article (“How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again,”) starts with this sentence: “Working-class voters delivered the Republican Party to Donald J. Trump.” (A day earlier its online edition started with “White working-class voters are Donald Trump’s base.”) No evidence at all is provided because none is needed, we’re all supposed to know it is true. Based On What? Not on academic research. Political scientists Noam Lupu (Vanderbilt) and Nicholas Carnes (Duke) definitively disproved the notion that most of the people who voted for Trump in 2016 were white working class. They showed that only 30 percent of the Trump voters could be considered a part of that group. It’s time to jettison the idea that social grievances are the prime motivation. Workers are frustrated with a political establishment that has failed to halt mass layoffs, which according to our estimates have impacted more than half of all working people and their families. The 2018 Primaries Project, at the Brookings Institute, reported that those voting in congressional Republican primaries in 2018 were better educated and richer than the public at large. Again, the white working class formed no more than one-third of the Republican primary base. What about the January 6th insurrection? Wasn’t that a white working-class riot? Not according to the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, which analyzed the demographics of the 716 individuals who had been charged with various January 6th crimes, as of January 1, 2022. Fifty percent were either business owners or white-collar workers, and only 25 percent were blue-collar workers (defined as no college degree). The research for my book, Wall Street’s War on Workers, provides new data that confirms the white working class does not in any way pour into Hillary Clinton’s “basket full of deplorables.” In fact, most white working-class voters have become decidedly more liberal on divisive social issues over the last several decades, including LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, and racial discrimination. Nevertheless, the New York Times’ acceptance of the MAGA working-class canard is like a version of the old Groucho Marx line: “Who do you believe: Me (the data) or your lying eyes?” Why Blame the White Working Class? The attacks on working-class populism have been around for more than 140 years. Corporate owners and their newspapers viciously denounced the populist movement of the late 19th century, which aggressively challenged financial and corporate power. To counter that increasingly successful movement, newspapers, as well as pro-corporate politicians, depicted the populists as ignorant bomb-throwing radicals and worse. The modern-day attacks on the white working class began during the 1950s as political scientists sought to account for the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who cruelly attacked anyone he suspected of radical sympathies. Thousands lost their livelihoods and reputations because of his reckless disregard for the truth and for individual rights. Why was he so popular? McCarthy, a dictatorial personality, considered by many academics to be in the mold of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, was elected in Wisconsin, which was still considered in the 1950s to be a populist-oriented state. Therefore, it was assumed that McCarthy gained his power from the state’s white working class, small-farmer base. The common political wisdom believed that these working people were liberal on economic issues but fundamentally anti-democratic when it came to minority rights and civil liberties. These were the kind of people, supposedly, who were more likely to embrace authoritarians. This was accepted as gospel until Michael P. Rogin (The Intellectuals and McCarthy) looked more closely at where McCarthy actually garnered his votes. It turned out that the populist election districts voted against him. McCarthy’s real base of support came from small town professionals – the lawyers, business owners, and real estate people who formed the traditional base of the Republic Party. And the most influential drivers of McCarthy’s assault on democratic norms turned out to be conservatives, who showed far more support for authoritarianism than worker and agrarian progressives. Déjà Vu All Over Again? Once again today, the media and all too many politicians are blaming working people for the rise of Trump and MAGA. Yet, if we open our (lying) eyes a bit more, we can’t miss the massive horde of lawyers and businesspeople who serve as Trump’s enthusiastic enablers, from Rudy Giuliani on down. Members of the white working class are often included in photo ops but play no prominent roles in the MAGA hierarchy. And where are the MAGA unionized working-class people? Surely, there must be a lot of them in Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. But Trump is having trouble finding them. For example, after Joe Biden marched in a United Autoworkers (UAW) picket line, Trump countered with a working class visit of his own to an auto-parts factory, where, according to credible reports, no more than a handful of UAW members were to be found. The New York Times also didn’t find the MAGA working class when it profiled 11 Republican voters before the Iowa caucus. (“Nation’s First Voters Weigh Trump’s Gravitational Pull”). Nine of those interviewed were white-collar workers, professionals, or business owners. Only two might be considered working class -- one a Trump supporter who was a customer service representative, and the other a retired factory worker who was for DeSantis. Where is that rabid white working class that supposedly forms the rock-solid MAGA base? Where it always is these days. Trying to make ends meet. Hoping to avoid the next mass layoff. Wondering when a politician will really try to do something positive for economically devastated areas of the country instead of kissing up to Wall Street. There is no question that Trump has working-class support, including more Back and Hispanic voters. While some may be attracted by his deplorable messages, others hope against hope that he will bully corporations into keeping their jobs from fleeing the country. It’s time to jettison the idea that social grievances are the prime motivation. Workers are frustrated with a political establishment that has failed to halt mass layoffs, which according to our estimates have impacted more than half of all working people and their families. They have been waiting, waiting, and waiting some more for politicians who dare to challenge corporate greed and to protect the livelihoods of everyday working people. As the two major parties fail to protect them from Wall Street’s war on workers, the legitimacy of democracy is imperiled. Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely. LES LEOPOLD Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and author of the forthcoming book “Wall Street’s War on Worker s: How Mass Layoffs
No shot, this state is cooked. I remember when a bunch of people gave me push back on that shit and then Desantis won the state by like 60% Florida is a shithole that should sink into the fucking sea along with every single piece of shit racist, bigoted fascist Desantis voter
Please do https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/08/greg-abbott-beto-orourke-texas-governor-race/ Texas likes their fascists and likes them quite a bit. Not change of the state turning blue. State sucks a little less than florida but it is also a shithole
The florida dems can easily, effortlessly say "no fl governor has inherited anything except a republican state for decades. Did they fix your home owners insurance?"
This. Losing Texas would render all swing states irrelevant- if Rs lost it, it wouldn’t matter what else they could realistically win. They will never let that happen.
FWIW the Tom keen flip is another example of how bad the abortion stuff is for the GOP. Every commercial I saw that's what they talked about
Lyrtch can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that is to be expected of a fascist movement and that often the downfall of a democracy is a middle class desperately trying to hold on to their modest wealth/status
If there were any sort of well funded voter turnout effort in Texas for young folks it would easily flip. The non voting numbers are insane.
Hasn't Texas gone about removing polling stations in areas that have a majority of D voters? I feel like I recall them doing this around certain parts of the state, but I honestly can't remember. Regardless, current R leaning states that are seeing more Ds voting will do whatever necessary to make sure they remain in power. And this Supreme Court will allow it to happen. I can appreciate RBG and what she accomplished but she fucked the US royally by being stubborn and not stepping down.
Who determines polling locations anyway? That feels like it can be really fucky as per the post above.
Yes they have https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/23/texas-voting-polling-restrictions/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/20/election-day-countywide-voting-texas-senate/
if you just track the presidential drift left results in texas, combined with an extra bump from huge in migration to texas of highly educated folks, you see a clear picture that it could be this cycle that biden gets there
trump won by 650,000 votes in 2020. Id love you to be right but shaving that number down even 400,000 votes seems like a huge win