In the New York Times today, Jonathan Weisman tells the story—well, a story—of how Democrats lost the white working class. It's all about economic anxiety.
Maybe so, but even Weisman himself acknowledges the obvious:
- It started in 1968 with "hardhats for Nixon." This was long before de-industrialization. It was all about Vietnam and the counterculture.
- Next up were the "Reagan Democrats" in 1980. This may have had some connection to inflation and oil shocks, but it was mostly about social issues like abortion and the political resurgence of fundamentalist Christians.
- Newt Gingrich turned the South solidly red in 1994. This was, obviously, the final act in a long-running shift of Southern white voter loyalty due to racial resentments against Democrats.
- Donald Trump solidified things in 2016, mostly thanks to his outrage over the "invasion" of illegal immigrants. This too is largely a social issue, as even a brief look at a map confirms:
Illegal immigration isn't an economic issue in the Midwest or most of the South, where support for Trump was strongest. There are hardly any illegal immigrants there. They're mostly in California, Texas, New Jersey, and New York City, none of which have changed their political allegiances lately.
And of course there's this:
No matter how you measure it, this is no great shakes. Even the gains since the end of the Great Recession are modest at best.
At the same time, they don't show any great instability or loss. That came 40 years ago in the Reagan era, which really was pretty disastrous for the working class. More recently, even with NAFTA and China, working class wages have been pretty steady. And for what it's worth, you can also just ask people:
Dissatisfaction goes up a bit during recessions and recovers during good times. Aside from that, it's been steady within a band of 2-3 percentage points.
So I continue to have problems with the economic anxiety story. I'm not dead set against it, since financial anxiety can manifest itself in lots of different ways. Still, the bulk of the evidence really seems to point much more toward cultural issues than economic ones.
Absolutely.
And it's not really about the price of eggs at all. It's loathing of (1) all "those people" presumed to be getting eggs as part of an imagined massive government handout, and (2) all "those snobs" who have college degrees and better jobs and are assumed to be looking down at those who didn't go to college.
It's resentment, pure and simple. And Trump, ignorant of so many factual matters he may be, instinctively knows how to stir up that resentment into hatred-driven votes.
Kevin Drum appears to subscribe to the iron-clad rule of political reporting: IT IS NEVER ABOUT RACE!
So, now "cultural issues" is the euphemism they use instead?
Yes. Trump did well with working class Hispanics and blacks because they are all white supremacists.
They're right about one thing; I am "looking down" on them, and I don't even have a four year college degree. I took community college classes in programming in the early days when people would take a chance on you and turned out to be a very good programmer. Of course, they hate me, too, because I was an elitist "hippie" . Good times!
I’ve worked in manufacturing plants for many years. The working class have not been liberal or democrats for at least 20 years. I’m not sure why you are just now noticing. Reagan democrats are a bit before my time, but when I started working in 1988, they all hated democrats so I’m guessing that was them. To hell with them. My interests do not coincide with theirs.
Yeah, I was coming on to ask why does the Dem Party continue to promote policies that help working class whites again?
Because support for the working class is a basic underpinning of liberal/leftist philosophy.
And yet… they consistently reject that agenda because it comes along with things like tolerance and a host of other social and cultural issues. The coalition has fractured and is broken beyond repair. Bernie Sanders wrote an editorial in the guardian last week and it’s just the same stuff democrats have run on for a long time. It’s a loser.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/31/bernie-sanders-healthcare-reform-opinion
Wildly unrealistic and lacks the support of even the working class.
It’s the racism. Manifested against various groups at different times. Even the hippies and the counterculture were seen as less than fully human….. Remember the “refugees from a gorilla love-in” crack from Easy Rider? Such dehumanizing was common at the time.
I do.
My father rode across the country (much like depicted in the movie) after he got out of his service in the Vietnam war. I still have the flag he carries the whole way.
He only got shot after my parents decided to move to a small town to raise me.
C'mon Crissa. Totally unfair. If you have a gun onstage in the first act someone has gotta use it before the curtain. IOW, do tell....
There's a commenter/reader in our local paper who is utterly unabashed about saying that anyone who voted for AOC or Sanders or any left wing politician (which appears to encompass pretty much the entire Democratic party) is without question not a real American and should be forced to leave.
The hatred of socialism, the poor, blacks, and other cultures is very deeply ingrained in the American psyche. When people talk about "traditional American values", that's really what they mean.
Undesirables segmented off into their own areas so as to not lower property values and school performance.
You don't work, you don't eat.
Don't take from me to give to those who don't contribute.
A very, very large portion of the country holds those values, and you identify them by their reference to traditional American values. They ARE telling you right up front who they are.
It's biological. With the exception of African-Americans whose ancestors were dragged here in chains, and native Americans whose ancestors walked and paddled here, we are descended from people who were misfits and malcontents who left their homelands.
This has been GREAT for innovation, because smart people who are dissatisfied create solutions to whatever problem is limiting them, but there's an entire half a Normal Distribution who are emphatically NOT figuring out better manufacturing processes or social structures. The Euro-Americans among them are marinating in their bitter resentment for having been displaced by smarter "others".
Democracy can't exist in a society in which stupidity is praised, valorized and rewarded.
Mencken was right.
I love Mencken 🙂
I agree with you, but I also think ambition plays a huge role. Smart doesn't help much with ambition to change something, even as simple as your tax bracket. The combination of ambitious and smart is what creates people who move the world.
Jobless and starving in their home country had a lot to do with immigration a century or more ago. The pattern basically followed the industrial revolution (including in farming) sweeping across Europe from England. And that also includes improvements in medicine meaning those big families were starting to be less necessary with more kids surviving right when they weren't needed any more.
Maybe the first son got the farm and the rest split. Not really always based on brains or ambition.
Racism against hippies?
It's a stretch of the term, but obviously similar. Othering.
Just a few weeks ago Atticus and Leo and the usual suspects were lecturing us in this forum about how D's "let" R's score big in this election by putting trans people front and center.
It isn't just racism. It's bigotry in many different forms.
There's always a new, scary boogeyman to keep these guys in a state of panic.
Gotta scroll.
Also, we should know by now that anything Rs do is caused by and the fault of Ds.
Nevermind I've been here in Kevin's comments longer than either of them.
Pisses me off.
Where on Kevin's blog here can we look-up joining date?
WordPress might have that data.
If they expose it, they do so in a well-hidden way. I've looked at my profile, and it says nothing about when I joined (which would have been within days of if not the day of Kevin announcing the new blogging grounds_.
Well, Mr Drum has moved from venue to venue over the years. I date back to the old "Calpundit" days. Got in again late in the MoJo years.
+1
I used to try listing them to emphasize that, as contrary to the now old "it's the economy," stupid."
But it's also that not nearly enough emphasis is placed on the previously much larger tax on the wealthy (a major reason that The IRS was supposed to get more funding to hire agents to investigate more of the rich, not harrass the poor). of course, ot would be nice if voters could be given more information about the federal
budget, economics, & what affects them, what causes inflation, & the limits of a president to control it. Very tired of people who are willfully ignorant & easily manipulated by someone who appropriated Reagan's slogan & added a red hat. At least that bigot smiled when he said that.
they are down below doing the same thing
Kevin from November 9th: https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-what-the-american-public-thinks-of-culture-war-issues/
Which, once all the particulars are sheared away, is just plain fear.
We didn't do that as much as they did. Gay people are basically legally and socially accepted so the right had to move on to a related hot button issue. Apparently most of Trump's commercials in battleground states were about boys in girls locker rooms etc. A very important national issue affecting everyone.....
The Democrats keep talking about diversity and women getting ahead and being safe as if those were good things. I don’t think most people care about those things as they don’t see how that helps them.
To me this is plain old salesmanship; features and benefits. A lot of the things that Democrats propose are features, they need to go the next step and explain them as benefits. How does a just society help me? How does equal treatment under the law help me?
My mother listens to some sort of Catholic/Nazi podcasts. They don’t talk about equal treatment. They repeatedly talk about how liberals make life worse and all our problems can be blamed on pornographers in Los Angeles, black people getting generous handouts and taxes she pays being spent on foreign aid and other things that don’t help her. None of it is true and a lot of it is rather revolting but the consistent message is that liberals and Democrats are actively taking away from her. Of course, they never mention billionaires getting tax breaks or other such perks for the 0.1% class.
Hah, when I saw this NYT piece I expected Kevin to chime in on it. I am frankly tired of hearing about this nebulous and ill-defined "working class." The USA economy is the envy of the world, but our own people don't seem to recognize it.
If you voted for Trump based on the economy, then you were wrong. If you voted due to bigotry, you are still wrong but also a terrible person. In either case you made a mistake. Let's stop trying to intuit some liberal fault. It's OK to blame the populace when they make a dangerous mistake. Democracy doesn't guarantee some wisdom of the crowds, it just gives the average person a say in their government, even if that contribution is poor.
👍👍👍👍👍
Economic anxiety is not just about how much more money I'm making now, but where I expected to be at this point...
Dad (or grand dad) had a house, a stay at home wife, a picket fence, three kids, a dog, etc. when they were my age! They just went down the street to the factory (or mine) and had a job! They didn't have to prepare dinner for their wife that works, or run their kid over to their friends for a "play date"! No one is preparing me a drink when I walk in the house! Why does it take a full week to get my new 60" flat screen TV! What's wrong with AMERICA!!!
And how much I make relative to someone else.
And how much you're subsidizing the tax cuts & loopholes for corporation & the wealthy.. Remember trump bragging about how "smart" he was to not pay taxes for years, all three while bragging about his vast wealth - & later letting his accountant pay the price?
Kids in the 1950's, 60's and 70's didn't have "play dates". The just went out the front door and played with kids in the neighborhood. Parents didn't need to teach their kids how to play.
That's the big difference with people who grew up after video games and the home computer came around. They didn't need any social skills and boy does it show.
The type of childhood we had was killed by the 80’s “stranger danger” stuff. Remember missing kids on milk cartons? The urban legends about kidnappings foiled at the last minute by vigilant parents/store employees/ police officers? A lot of that parental anxiety was brought about by born again Christian lies about Satanic cults, etc. Nowadays letting your kid play alone in the park is worth of a CPS visit.
Thanks for saving me some commenting time. It's still always something like "it's not safe to let my kids run around like we used to." Actually it's probably a lot safer.
Besides the kids are all in their bedrooms playing video games.
Is your nym a reference to the Flaming Groovies?
Kevin, you got this entirely correct, perfectly said, in your Title:
"The working class story is about culture, not economic anxiety..."
I would bold the above if I could...all this talk about losing the working class, (meaning most normal Americans), is just wrong as wrong as wrong could be:
It is not the Economy Stupid...it is gay people, uppity blacks (yes, I know that phrase is going to irritate people), women wanting to strive ahead, and the simple gall to exist at all...Brown People!
I'm sorry, but someone needs to say, (as I have on my travel place...to much push back), but these people, my friends, are literally, like cyber truck man, they are literally insane pro-Trump, Kennedy, Musk....brain wormed fools...they are stupid, very stupid and Hillary was right ...and I think Democrats should hammer away at the fact that all, ALL, these people are Deplorables, and are in every real sense of the word insane.
But then, I am a Radical...So, Best Wishes, Traveller
Perhaps, then, democrats don’t have a useful economic agenda at all. It’s a culture party.
You are good at saying dumb things on the internet. Way to go.
Did you realize your comment is full of the same tribalism and intolerance it criticizes?
I wouldn't exactly say "racism" because that's a very specific word for people who clearly espouse a belief that Black people are genetically inferior to white people. That's pretty rare these days as an explicit belief.
There's a broader impulse of dislike for people who differ from your social group in a wide variety of ways, whether it's race, or ethnic origin, or clothing preferences, or musical tastes, or accents, or religion, or education, or even degree of tolerance toward the preceding groups -- basically anything that spouted out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth before he mercifully kicked off.
In short, it's tribalism of many different flavors. More than anything, it's political affiliation. But the one thing it is NOT is "economic anxiety." That's some kind of brain worm that infects the Washington punditry.
"Racism" is a tough word because while it's an explosive word, people have different ideas of what it means. A lot of folks on the Right sincerely use the old MLK "content of character not color of skin" definition and as you noted, not espousing Blacks are genetically inferior. Meanwhile, some on the Left talk about things like structural racism and accuse folks on the right of being racist. Which REALLY pisses off some of the above-mentioned folk.
I have found that there are not too many people left who are racist on the old traditional sense of the word (and not all of them are on the Right...).
Slowly slowly slowly you'll get there Kevin...
Maybe, having ditched the baggage of <1980s Marxism you'll next be ready to ditch the baggage of 2020's Marxism and stop insisting that ANY and EVERY cultural disagreement you dislike is automatically driven by "racism" and "misogyny"?
Really! You'd prefer to call racism and misogyny "cultural disagreement"? That's like the hatred that doesn't dare speak its name.
It's not like this sockpuppet even bothered to make an argument. Just nyahnyah bigotry doesn't exist. Hardly worth replying to.
That's the thing about the range of Mr. Drum on his free (to us) blog: he is denounced as both a Republican & a Marxist.
Reminds me of Marjorie Greene calling those she dislikes by multiple labels - Nazi. Socialists. & Communist.
Thought this was going under the other comment about the Marxist reference - sorry.
stopped reading after "2020's Marxism "
my head hurts from the involuntary eyeroll that triggered.
LOL! What does any of this have to do with Marxism? You obviously know *nothing* about Marx or his economic theories. You're just using the term like Trump does--as an epithet for anything you despise.
Smarter trolls, please.
+1
Kevin? Orange County Marxist? Reeaaallly?
It wasn't 1968. It started when advertising and mass media created the othering of everyone, the alienation of everyone from everyone else.
So... like... the crusades? Earlier?
1920s.
Then teen music, parents don't like it. Boomers avoiding interaction with older people habitually. Media cultivates awareness of distant others at the same time as developing targeted marketing of stuff 'for you'.
A little earlier than that. Rejection of European "socialism" was already on the rise in the late 1800s. The proponents of Capitalism vilified the very idea of broad based economic gain "without effort" and began claiming such a thing to be un-American. Patriotism and Capitalism became intertwined to become interchangeable.
FOMO? I think that was what keeping up with the Jones was all about. And really it's just the green eyed monster, and that fucking Abel, he deserved exactly what he got!
Alas, https://jabberwocking.com/wage-growth-has-been-sluggish-for-the-past-three-years/ doesn't go back to the Reagan years. Still, Kevin's conclusions included:
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-middle-class-incomes-have-done-better-than-you-probably-think/comment-page-1/ does go back to before the Reagan years. And presents a mixed bag. Median income for the 35-44 bracket going down through the Carter Administration and hovering into the first year (perhaps second) of Reagan's. And then "Blue Collar Hourly Wages" starting in 1969, which he describes as:
Ie Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton.
Among the returns of a search - "earnings relative site:jabberwocking.com"
I have a couple excellent charts at hand but can't post them here at Graphs 'n Charts R Us.
You missed the opportunity to think about how each side of the political aisle views the meaning of middle class, and how, once in a while, the two merge.
The left views middle class as the blue collar working class where people ought to be able to make a decent living from working hard at any job but especially the jobs that bring sweat to the brow with teeth clenched. The right views the middle class as a collection of cultural values -- of apple pie, church, father knows best, of working hard, and football on Sundays.
The framing of illegal immigration is a case where the two merged. "Illegal" immigration was painted as an invasion of outside values, of people stealing work and preventing people from earning a decent wage, of people who drove the prices up of everything but especially housing.
I kinda hope that Donald does manage to expel 10 or 12 million people in a year or two just as a big economic experiment. And impose every tariff he campaigned on.
Glad Kevin did turn to it. The article is even worse than the old claim that Trump voters really care about economic anxiety. It goes further, channeling the Republican party line about Democrats. It's angering and depressing, and it may be a sure sign that the right wing is calling the mainstream media's shots through Trump's term in office as well.
It opens by saying that it's all about a Democratic choice. The Democrats could have pushed for policies that would help the working class, you see, unlike, I guess, their entire platform and in stark contrast to Trump's platform. Instead, those presumably dumb or wicked Democrats chose to pursue a strong top-down economy and to pair that with programs for the very poor (and we all know who THEY are).
So the map shows 2016. A single point in time. What were the figures 4, 8, 12 years before? What are the figures 4, 8 (though perhaps too soon for figures for 8) years later?
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/ for earlier and later numbers, but not per-state
The situation was similar in each of those time periods.
I saw a poll where the perception of economy has improved by 15% among republicans since the election. By May 2025, I predict the majority of republicans will think the economy is better than six months before, when in fact, nothing would have changed.
By then, the stock market and the dollar will be tanking because of the Trump tariffs and as the increased cost of food and construction due to the Trump deportations are baked into the future projections.
It seems like a component is that the media has trained people to believe their problems are "economic" because that makes it sound better than that they're easily led fools.
Well, the media can't be caught calling easily led fools - easily led fools. Can't have that.
Didn't Vivek already do that?
I like this analysis because it gives agency and therefore responsibility to Trump voters for their choice. But, I find it depressing because if accurate Democrats don't have much to offer in order to attract these voters.
"Still, the bulk of the evidence really seems to point much more toward cultural issues than economic ones."
Cultural issues? Like art, music, literature, science? When did racism and misogyny start rubbing shoulders with the finer aspects of our lives?
👍👍👍👍👍
I think in this case the word isn't cultural but philosophical ideals of what America is what it means to be an American.
We do not see the world through the same lens.
Kulchur, not Cultchah.
It is my belief that complaining about the economy is what you do when you don’t want to admit that your vote is driven by misogyny and racism. You can’t say out loud that you can’t vote for a brown woman for president so you just say, “Oh, it’s the economy! “ Sadly, it was a Democrat, James Carville, who gave us “it’s the economy, stupid “and justified all that.
A plausible (to my mind) definition of the 'economic anxiety' trope is that these weaklings are anxious about economically competing on a level playing field. This is, of course, subsumed into the levelizing of other playing fields. But it sounds uglier when you explicitly mention them by name.
I generally agree with this statement from Kevin:
“Still, the bulk of the evidence really seems to point much more toward cultural issues than economic ones.”
But the denial in too many of these comments is staggering. Democrats did not lose because Americans are evil and misogynistic racists. We lost because:
1.) people have entirely valid reasons for disagreeing with or rejecting the Left’s stand on several cultural issues; but,
2.) the Left typically responds to any such dissent with condemnations and censorship; and,
3.) the Dem party in general, and Kamala Harris in particular, failed to adequately condemn, and disassociate themselves from, not just the crazier assertions of the Left but also from its illiberal attempts to muzzle disagreement on any of their contentious positions.
Here’s an example from just the last week, as reported in Free Inquiry:
“The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) published on its website an essay by Kat Grant titled ‘What Is a Woman?’ in which Grant concluded that ‘A woman is whoever she says she is.’ Along the way, Grant argued that there is no biological basis for distinguishing men from women.
“Jerry A. Coyne, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago and, at the time, a member of FFRF’s honorary board, requested permission to post a reply. Permission was granted. Coyne’s essay argued, in part, that the clear distinction between male and female gamete types shows there is a biological basis for maintaining sex is binary and that, moreover, one’s feelings cannot change one’s sex. Coyne emphasized that the biology of sex did not, of course, in any way affect transgender rights: ‘Transgender people should surely enjoy all the moral and legal rights of everyone else.’
“FFRF then, without informing Coyne, removed his essay from its site. Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, copresidents of FFRF, issued an apology for having posted the essay …
“Now, my take. FFRF’s removal of Coyne’s post was unwarranted, and Barker and Gaylor’s curious apology shows they are no longer proponents of freethought, however much their organization may advocate for church-state separation. Being a freethinker implies a willingness to consider arguments that challenge one’s beliefs and to conform one’s beliefs to the evidence. Barker and Gaylor’s abrupt removal of Coyne’s post shows that for them the claim that sex is non-binary can never be challenged; it must be accepted as dogma.”
And, I would add, this kind of thing is still happening even after extensive reporting on the well-documented fact that trans extremism helped Trump win!
If the Dems cannot disassociate themselves from the fundamentalist ideologues on the Left, they don’t have a national future. That’s the issue. That’s the lesson of 2024.
The fault, dear Democrats, is not in exaggerated claims of right-wing racism, but in our own party.
now tell us all about how this was all the fault of a few trans girls playing HS sports.
Show us on the doll where those bad leftist democrats touched you.
So there are people on "the left" who take positions, for the purpose of this argument, that are unpopular and then self same "left" condemns people who
disagree. And if Kamala Harris or any other Democratic elected figure doesn't
disavow this with sufficient vigor then they will lose. Have I go this right ?
But then you say we Democrats are guilty of "exaggerated claims of right-wing racism" .
I suggest you read up on everything Donald Trump has said and DONE for the last 40 years and get back to us. Why hasn't his lack of any sort of disavowal from him or any of his followers cost the GOP a lot more elections if this is aout the delicate sensibilities of the average voter ?
Just to be clear. I don't always agree with Bernie Sanders or AOC but comparing them to Nick Fuentes or the Proud Boys or Roger Stone , remember him ?
This was what he said in 2020 when he thought the election would be close:
"I really do suspect it will be up in the air . When that happens the key thing is to claim victory. Possrssion is none tenths of the law. No we won. Fuck you. Sorry. Over. We won. You're wrong. Fuck you."
Thi is Trump's buddy, not some non profit that may have little to do with any Democrat in office. This is the moral high ground you are defending.
@RZM:
“So there are people on ‘the left’ who take positions, for the purpose of this argument, that are unpopular and then self same ‘left’ condemns people who
disagree. And if Kamala Harris or any other Democratic elected figure doesn't
disavow this with sufficient vigor then they will lose. Have I go this right ?”
YES! Congratulations 🎉 You are catching on.
Also: keep in mind that Trump DID very publicly and very repeatedly disavow some broadly unpopular right-wing positions. For instance, despite his anti-abortion backers, he insisted that abortion medications would remain available.
He may of course backtrack once in office, but at least during the campaign he stood up to some of the extremists on his own side.
And that’s something that Harris utterly failed to do. At best, she ignored them and hoped everyone else wound as well. And we all know how that worked out 😐
"He may of course backtrack once in office, but at least during the campaign he stood up to some of the extremists on his own side." He will backtrack, that's what all blatant pandereres do. He never stood up to anyone. He tells different groups what he thinks they want to hear. That's pandering. So what he contradicts himself. He's not only a pathological liar, but he's also an extreme narcasist. He doesn't care.
Bullshit. Trump was never anything but a hypocrite about abortion. Heck he probably paid for one or two along the way during his Viet Nam years avoiding std's. What gives Trump some leeway is that he lies and distorts so often - remember whe Daniel Dale was tracking his daily count of lies and falsehoods. Where were you then Leo ? Perseverating on Hillary's "deplorables" probably. Maybe we should have locked her up, like Trump chanted repeatedly at his rallies. I must have missed his disavowal. But with Trump and much of MAGA world, which, in case you haven't noticed has swallowed the GOP, the flow of nasty and bigoted and ugly innuendo is so constant it's hard to keep up. So, no, I don't think some questionable behavior at the FFRF which less than 1 percent of the population could identify, is the same as the barrage of shit coming from Trump and his followers and worse, his apologists, like you. This is false equivalence on steroids.
+1
What about those that may say economic concerns intersect with cultural anxieties (and vice versa)? And that framing it as binary sets up a false dichotomy between culture and economic anxiety that avoids the fact economic stress often intensifies cultural fears (and vice versa)?
And that perhaps this reductionism is born mostly by partisan bloggers and their readers who entertain them only as concepts on a screen because it helps them rationalize an electoral loss in a way that is easy to understand and distracts from the complex realities of the issues and even more complex solutions that are needed to address them?
Your obscure anecdotes are always amusing in their disconnection from reality.
It's the racism, stupid.
Both political parties have changed so much over the last 3/4 century. Nixon had a national healthcare plan ready to go but was talked out of it.
Reagan RAISED taxes when he and Stockton saw the deficit exploding after his tax cuts. Neither party can be compared to the "old days".
The democrats are no longer the party of Kennedy, and the republicans are no longer the party of Ike, Dick or Saint Ronnie. On top of the political changes, society has also changed - and blend in the technology changes and you can see that comparisons to the "old days" are pretty useless. To Richard Nixon instagram was a fast telegram - to Ronald Regan, the internet had something to do with fishing.
As a much older person I am still waiting for that politician who disavows BOTH parties - has the liberalism of Kennedy and the tight fisted-ness of Ike but is not called a democrat or republican. Those terms have lost all meaning.
I'm NOT holding my breath
"has the liberalism of Kennedy"
Is this the John F. "Bay of Pigs" Kennedy? The John F. "missile gap" Kennedy? The JFK who proposed to cut income taxes from a range of 20-91% to 14-65% and a cut in the corporate tax rate from 52% to 47%?
This appears to be a new and unfamiliar use of the word "liberalism."
Attributing the election of Trump to economics is remarkably illogical. Do lower-income White Christians have reason to be dissatisfied with their economic prospects? Certainly. Does this explain their vote for Republicans, who have never done anything for them economically? Certainly not. And although Trump makes lots of fake "populistic" promises, his actual economic record while President was standard Republican - tax cuts for corporations and the rich, deregulation, and attempting to cut anything benefiting lower-income people. If economics were the primary concern of lower-income whites they would certainly not vote for Republicans, against their own economic interests.
As I keep saying, their primary concern is tribal solidarity, which is mostly based on race and religion. When this tribalism is intense enough, logic and self-interest go by the board. In wars, including civil wars, people willingly sacrifice their lives for the sake of the tribe - or nation or side in a civil war. Every thing the other side does is wrong, and those on the other side lose their humanity - they become "vermin". Belief in what Trump says is not a result of stupidity, it is a sign of loyalty to the tribe.
Republican politicians have been deliberately cultivating this tribalism since the time of Goldwater. Or actually in the South the politicians who used racism switched from Democrat to Republican. Of course there is tribalism on the left as well, but it is not deliberately encouraged by Democratic politicians as a matter of policy.
If you refuse to acknowledge the power of tribalism, you will never understand politics (or other things such as religion).
@skeptonomist:
“As I keep saying, their primary concern is tribal solidarity, which is mostly based on race and religion.”
I like the first clause, but not the second.
There is certainly a lot of tribal solidarity on both sides. But on the Republican side, most of them would be perfectly happy to welcome, or in some way be represented by, black republicans. I don’t really recall all that many right-wing complaints about Clarence Thomas being black. As long as he stays a committed member of their tribe, they seem absolutely fine with him.
And the obvious problems with accusing 75 million (Republican) voters of racism are that, first of all, it’s clearly inaccurate, and, secondly, it’s entirely counterproductive. Seriously, there is no upside to that approach. All it will accomplish is to alienate voters that the Dems ultimately need to win back.
So all I can say to the many Dems (some of whom post in these comments) who think that everything can be explained by racism and/or misogyny is this: you need to get out more.
Am I the only one here who knows, and is related to, a number of Trump voters? Not only are they some of the nicest people I know, most of them are in fact quite a lot easier to get along with than your average Leftist (they are less obsessed over political correctness and actually speak freely and make jokes!).
It is 2024. It is not 1954. It’s not even 1974. We are now firmly into a 21st century in which majorities of American voters twice elected a black President. Please wake up and smell the egalitarianism.
21st century America is, by far, the most miraculously successful, large, and diversified democratic republic in the history of the world. The idea that our country is still significantly bedeviled with overwhelming numbers of racist and misogynistic troglodytes is, at the very least, decades out of date.
And all the Left accomplishes by continuing to push that myth, and make it the front and center of their bizarre ideology of victimhood, is to alienate the vast majority of American citizens.
So the Dems need to abandon the Left’s quasi-religious faith in mystical concepts like systemic racism and white fragility. Otherwise we can look forward to a permanent Republican dominance of our national politics.
"So the Dems need to abandon the Left’s quasi-religious faith in mystical concepts like systemic racism and white fragility."
😂😂😂😂😂
Angry, keyboard culture warrior Leo is certainly a strong piece of evidence that culture wars are always the key.
This isn't a new thing. The angry Leo's of the 60s, 70, 80s, etc.. were no different than this version of the angry, pampered culture warrior. This type of rage is evergreen for some folks.
It would be more interesting if you addressed the substance of his claims.
"Not only are they some of the nicest people I know . . ."
They said that about the Nazis, too. Honestly, could you be any less self-aware?
Smarter and less solipsistic trolls, please.
+1
Example: 80+% of Trump's tax cuts went to the 1% (or whatever it was) and corporations which immediately bought stock back or something. Donald sold it as a middle class tax cut. They bought the BS.
So many good comments, but let me add this, fundamentally, too many millions of American voters have drunk the “land of the free” = “land of free, total capitalism”. You hear so much nonsense about “in America you work hard, you get ahead”. As if. But …….. if you accept that as a starting point it is so easy to paint policies aimed at making the rules a bit more fair to everyone as “if it doesn’t help me, it’s the government screwing me (in favor of some undeserving group).”. That’s it. That’s the fundamental analysis - so to take just one example, if you don’t immediately shoot immigrants on site you are taking my job —- it must be a zero sum game. That’s why only super chatasmatic Dem candidates win nationally- that’s what it takes to overcome capitalist bias.
Kevin, of course, is quite right. It's culture.
That said, the questions...
(1) What drove the white working class into the arms of the GOP?
and
(2) Why did Trump prevail in 2024?
...aren't identical questions.
Ask Kevin himself has noted, the early evidence suggests Hispanic voters moved relatively decisively away from Democrats. So, it seems pretty likely to me that anxiety over inflation was a big difference-maker in the modest (roughly 5% of the electorate) shift of persuadable voters toward Trump, even though the long term movement of working class voters toward the GOP (and the long term movement of college-educated voters toward Democrats) is primarily a story of culture.
Why would the fact that it was Hispanic turnout be evidence that inflation was definitely the thing?
Before you knew anything about Hispanic turnout, you were sure inflation was the thing.......
Why would the fact that it was Hispanic turnout be evidence that inflation was definitely the thing?
Because Hispanics as a voting cohort are considerably less affluent than the median, and inflation hurts less affluent voters. There's also pretty solid evidence that the Hispanic electorate is "swingly" — ie, prone to sizable partisan shifts from one election to the next (see Bush's 2004 numbers, for instance). Democrats had better hope this is the case, in any event: if they can't claw back Hispanic support in 2028...
Before you knew anything about Hispanic turnout, you were sure inflation was the thing.......
I continue to believe inflation was the key factor in the roughly five percent shift that handed Trump the White House. I'm not sure what you're talking about in reference to Hispanic "turnout." I have no idea what Hispanic turnout was like this past election, and haven't made any claims along these lines. I do think the evidence suggests Trump saw a pretty substantial increase in support from this cohort, though, yes. We should have more precise data later this year.
Por que no los dos?
It's both, brother.
Lee Atwater was right, shouting about Blacks or gays doesn’t work for them anymore. But Trump figured out they can still shout,”Immigrant, immigrant, immigrant” or “Haitian, Haitian, Haitian” and now “trans, trans, trans”.
Kevin: This election reflects the economic effects of the pandemic, as evidenced by incumbent political parties universally losing elections.
Also Kevin: the disaffection of less-educated Americans with the Democratic party is cultural, not economic.
Pick a lane.
These two observations aren't remotely in conflict. It's overwhelmingly clear that the steady defection of white working class voters to the GOP has been mostly a phenomenon involving cultural values, in exactly the same manner as the converse: the drift of college-educated whites to the Democratic Party.
The above sets the backdrop for our politics, but, electoral outcomes are decided at the margin, and that margin (persuadable voters) is pretty small in the America of the 2020s. It seems likely the very modest shift we saw from 2020 to 2024 was indeed largely driven by "the economic effects of pandemic."