Says Digby Parton today at Hullaballoo “It has become a matter of conventional wisdom that the reason Donald Trump has captured the imagination of so many people is because he is speaking to the anxieties and anger of the white working class in America.” You know the song: stagnant incomes, trade agreements, the outsourcing. Only one thing-- they aren't Trump voters.
“The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both. They are certainly not among the lost, addicted and suicidal souls from that recent Princeton study. If it’s not a class thing, then why is it that so many of these people have voted for Trump.
Says Philip Klinkner (Hamilton College)-- “‘You can ask just one simple question to find out whether someone likes Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton: Is Barack Obama a Muslim? If they are white and the answer is yes, 89 percent of the time that person will have a higher opinion of Trump than Clinton.” That’s more accurate than asking people if it’s harder to move up the income ladder than it was for their parents (54 percent) or whether they oppose trade deals (66 percent). “After all is said and done, the analysis showed that these voters are primarily motivated by racial and ethnic animosity and resentment of social change. That's what they hear when he says he will "Make America Great Again.”
Some takeaways here. (1 It should be clear by now that Trump is not an economic populist. Although his rants touch on issues like trade, that is not the heart of his appeal. The elites his voters inveigh against are not from Wall Street but Washington. The Democrat ones (their lingo) who give their hard earned to minorities. The RINOs in Congress who haven’t impeached President Obama or repealed the PPACA. With Trump as their nominee, the GOP becomes what it has flirted with on the margins for years, a white identity party (2 There is no opening here for The Revolution according to Bernie. Theoretically, they might be better off economically under a Sanders presidency. They see, however, no common cause with non-white working class (or any non-whites for that matter). These middle class Americans might also be among the most resistant to the whole concept of Democratic Socialism. They may like their social security and work on government jobs. But just don’t call it socialism. Or, state-supported anything. On this, they are not persuadable; the can only be countered at the polls, but in national and local elections.
PS. With no opening on the “working-class” right for Sander’s messaging and true independents representing only 10% of the field, it becomes clear that to the extent Sanders represents a movement, it is comprised of voters who already lean liberal or points left. He has drawn crowds of younger voters to his rallies, but his most significant wins have been driven by party activists (caucuses) and so-called ‘liberals without a home’. Both groups have been predominately white. An enduring fiction of the campaign is the notion that it is drawing upon a vast pool of untapped voters responding to the candidate’s message. They are, in fact, a sizable but still minority faction.
