Yes, I note this in the very important effort not to allow people to white-wash Trump’s triumph of bigotry by the incorrect and manufactured narrative that Trump’s election is explained as the victory of an economic populist appealing to the “Republican white working class” voter. That narrative is not true, as poll after poll, analysis after analysis, repeatedly shows. The correct answer is more obvious — Trump ran an unprecedentedly bigoted campaign and millions of White voters eagerly lapped it up.
In the latest entry, the WashPo (with an assist) notes that “Clinton won majorities among voters in the rust belt (and nationwide) who said the economy was their primary issue”:
The driving narrative for the results of the November election has run contrary to that. According to a broad swath of popular understanding, Donald Trump will be the next president because he narrowly won three critical states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- powered by working class voters frustrated with economic intransigence.
But that's not what exit polling shows in those states, to Southpaw's point. Exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning a majority of the vote from people who told pollsters that the economy was the most important issue facing the country. What's more, in each state, a majority of voters said that was the case.
In fact, if we extend that out to every state for which we have exit polling, in 22 of those 27 states a majority of people said that the economy was the most important issue. And in 20 of those states, voters who said so preferred Hillary Clinton. In 17, in fact, a majority of those voters backed Clinton.
. . . . In nearly every state, Clinton did better (and Trump worse) with voters worried about the economy than with the overall pool of voters.
What did this analysis by the WashPo show drove Trump voters to victory?
Trump was preferred by those who saw immigration or terrorism as most important. The key is the margins. On average, about 13 percent of people in the 27 states said foreign policy was most important and they preferred Clinton by an average of 30 points. On average, voters who said the economy was most important preferred Clinton by 7.3. But on terrorism, rated most important by a fifth of voters, on average, Trump led by an average of 21.8 points. On immigration (most important to an average of 12.2 percent of respondents)? A huge 42.1 percentage point lead for Trump.
It is important that we not allow White apologist myths to obscure what happened in this election, particularly if it helps those trying to undermine core Democratic values. (See, e.g., “No, Mark Lilla. Bathrooms are not the reason Democrats lost the election.”) It is also important that we not normalize Trump and his voters, and this incorrect “Republican working class White man” trope is designed precisely to do that. As I wrote in a comment to a different post last Sunday:
I’m a white guy myself. Only White people could elect an unprecedented bigot like Trump, watch him stock his administration with racists, antisemites, islamaphobes, homophobes, and misogynists . . . . and then say: “Gee, I think this thing was always about the economy!”