A professor emerita of sociology at the University of California-Berkeley spends time with Trump supporters in Louisiana and forms a hypothesis about why they support Trump, which actually is interesting and insightful. Read “I Spent Five Years With Some of Trump’s Biggest Fans” by Arlie Russell Hochschild.
The capsule version is that there are pockets of white culture that have developed a huge ambivalence, shall we say, about government. I can remember when people of the same demographic were excited about Ronald Reagan because they believed he would “kick all the bums off welfare,” as one woman told me then.
Hochschild’s hypothesis is that these white people consider it shameful to take government assistance and resent the “undeserving” types who are in an imaginary line ahead of them and soaking up all the benefits. “Shaming the ‘takers’ below had been a precious mark of higher status.”
But then she says,
Trump, the King of Shame, has covertly come to the rescue. He has shamed virtually every line-cutting group in the Deep Story—women, people of color, the disabled, immigrants, refugees. But he’s hardly uttered a single bad word about unemployment insurance, food stamps, or Medicaid, or what the tea party calls “big government handouts,” for anyone—including blue-collar white men.
In this feint, Trump solves a white male problem of pride. Benefits? If you need them, okay. He masculinizes it. You can be “high energy” macho—and yet may need to apply for a government benefit. As one auto mechanic told me, “Why not? Trump’s for that. If you use food stamps because you’re working a low-wage job, you don’t want someone looking down their nose at you.” A lady at an after-church lunch said, “If you have a young dad who’s working full time but can’t make it, if you’re an American-born worker, can’t make it, and not having a slew of kids, okay. For any conservative, that is fine.”
But in another stroke, Trump adds a key proviso: restrict government help to real Americans. White men are counted in, but undocumented Mexicans and Muslims and Syrian refugees are out. Thus, Trump offers the blue-collar white men relief from a taker’s shame: If you make America great again, how can you not be proud? Trump has put on his blue-collar cap, pumped his fist in the air, and left mainstream Republicans helpless. Not only does he speak to the white working class’ grievances; as they see it, he has finally stopped their story from being politically suppressed. We may never know if Trump has done this intentionally or instinctively, but in any case he’s created a movement much like the anti-immigrant but pro-welfare-state right-wing populism on the rise in Europe. For these are all based on variations of the same Deep Story of personal protectionism.
It struck me while I was reading this that white folks didn’t have problems with the New Deal. I know I’ve written about this in the past, but the anti-government thing really didn’t start until Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program. Then, all of a sudden, white people who had been helped enormously by many New Deal programs, and who had received subsidized mortgages and college educations thanks to the GI Bill, were against government programs.
But they might have gotten over that by now had the Democrats remained committed to working class Americans. But in the 1980s neoliberalism became the new, shiny thing among up-and-coming Democrats, and neoliberalism threw working people under the bus in favor of of investors and entrepreneurs. The neolibs were even anti-union.
Red states are, in fact, a lot stingier with benefits, and “welfare reform” didn’t help. (See also.) In the poorer states, white people are either hanging on to a middle-class lifestyle by their fingernails or have fallen out of it. And once you’ve lost your grip, it’s close to impossible to climb back up.
Hochschild’s hypothesis is also interesting because it tells us that Trump voters are rejecting right-wing “small government” ideology. Maybe the tipping point has finally been reached at which enough red-state whites are hurting enough to admit they need help, but they are still too racist to accept help if it puts them in the same welfare line, so to speak, as nonwhites.
Well, it’s a start. But see “Trump a Working-Class Hero? A Blue-Collar Town Debates His Credentials.” Here it’s blue-collar workers in Youngstown, Ohio, who have watched their community get poorer and poorer. Trump appeals to many of them because they think he will take charge and actually do something, as opposed to the nothing they’ve gotten from either the public or private sector for a long time. Of course, one would hope a more pro-active and progressive government would have done something to keep Youngstown from stagnating in the first place. But government hasn’t been pro-active and progressive for a very long time.
A number of people interviewed in this article are Democrats who plan to vote for Trump. Hillary Clinton isn’t mentioned. But note that all the polls show Clinton beating Trump in Ohio.
Henley’s “little tin God” comes to mind. There will be no cowboy on a horse riding out of the West to fix our problems caused by neoliberalism compounded by neo – conservatism .
Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, have melded to create generations of not ‘neo,’, but ‘REAL-stupid’ voters!
“What’s the matter with Kansas?” Among other states?
Generations of people who see government helping ‘”Them,” while collecting “THEIR” fair share – but small share, all while bitching about “Those” people making more! (When, in fact, most get less EARNED BENEFITS!!!)
(DUMB)FUX “news,” Drudge, and Reich-Wing radio yakkers, all add kindling, wood, coal, and gasoline, onto the fire they start.
But, hey, their out is that they’re “entertainers!”
So was Nero, I guess, if the legend is true that he fiddled, while Rome burned!
I love this countfy!
But there are too, too many day’s, when I not only don’t like it. I loathe it!
cund gulag : ““What’s the matter with Kansas?†Among other states?
Generations of people who see government helping ‘â€Them,†while collecting “THEIR†fair share – but small share, all while bitching about “Those†people making more!”
I know a few farmers in Kansas and that is exactly what I get listening to them rant. Generations of farm subsidies that “they” are entitled to and no one else.
Increasing temperatures is really going to bring on the insects and weeds. I am starting to believe that the Great Depression is prelude.
Bardi,
I’m pretty sure that global warming, when these fools actually realize it’s really here, will be blamed on people of color.
After all, white reflects heat.
Colors, absorb heat.
So, they’ll blame any nearby black, brown, red, yellow, people, for the coming droughts and climate warming!
When those farmers run out of aquifer… who they gonna call?
IME, direct, factual, reality-based discussions with these ‘faithful’ only seem to strengthen their resolve. And then one risks being labeled ‘the other’, ‘in league with Satan’, or worst of all, a Democrat, resulting in all lines of communication being sealed off. Are more ideas needed about how we can effectively counter this self-poisoning culture? Or do we just hang out and whine about it, SOSDD?
It’s a sad, sad, day!
That great comedic actor, Gene Wilder, died today:
http://variety.com/2016/film/news/gene-wilder-dead-dies-willie-wonka-young-frankenstein-1201846745/
R.I P.
Gene Wilder.
You brought laughter to the world – and what better epitaph can one have?
Great post and interesting reading from Arlie and Corey. However, I think the neoliberal explanation needs a little more. It wasn’t that Dems woke up one day and decided to be anti-union. It was that Reagan and the Republicans had successfully ruptured the union vote, which was almost split down the middle (48% for Carter, 45% for Reagan). Contrast that to Carter getting 62% of the union household vote versus Ford’s 28%. Also Reagan won the white vote in America by almost 20%!
So the neoliberal movement didn’t arise out of thin air. It came from Dems being slaughtered in the 1980 election and becoming convinced, rightly or wrongly, that working class whites were never going to vote for them again, because of race and identity politics.
Source: http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-1980/
Lit3Bolt — Yes, good points.
Hochschild’s article in Mother Jones is haunting. To me the most frightening part was when Sharon, the insurance salesperson, asked who could live a week without a paycheck and no hands went up. That the lower thirty percent slept longer and watched more television paled in significance.
I recall an old sage telling me that the difference between those of class and those of little class was the ability to delay gratification. Would it not be in their best interest to at least find a leader who exemplified frugality and a more moderate life style?
Perhaps to identify with those who live lavishly, talk brashly, and freely distort reality is a more prudent choice. I am sure it beats cutting back a little today.
bernie — The problem isn’t so much lack of frugality; it’s a lack of job security combined with rock-bottom wages. FYI real wages (wages adjusted for inflation) for American workers peaked in the early 1970s and have been sliding downward ever since, but in the anti-union South wages were never that high to begin with. So you’ve got skilled and even college-educated people with allegedly middle-class jobs who are trying to buy houses and cars and toasters and whatever else middle-class Americans are supposed to have, and it’s keeping them on the edge of ruin because wages don’t stretch that far any more. But they can’t bring themselves to accept they can’t maintain the lifestyle their parents had and would have been achievable for them a few years ago.
And then the working-class guys are just damn poor, even if they have jobs. You can live cheaper in most southern states than elsewhere, but there’s a point that you can’t even afford to live in the South.
Actually, neoliberalism started “becoming a thing” for Dems in the late 1970s. See “Carter, James Earl.”