scholarly journals Trump Voters and the White Working Class

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Morgan ◽  
Jiwon Lee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Election ◽  
Community Surveys ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Election Studies

To evaluate the claim that white working-class voters were a crucial block of support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, this article offers two sets of results. First, self-reports of presidential votes in 2012 and 2016 from the American National Election Studies show that Obama-to-Trump voters and 2012 eligible nonvoters composed a substantial share of Trump’s 2016 voters and were disproportionately likely to be members of the white working class. Second, when county vote tallies in 2012 and 2016 are merged with the public-use microdata samples of the 2012-to-2016 American Community Surveys, areal variations across 1,142 geographic units that sensibly partition the United States show that Trump’s gains in 2016 above Romney’s performance in 2012 are strongly related to the proportion of the voting population in each area that was white and working class. Taken together, these results support the claim that Trump’s appeal to the white working class was crucial for his victory.

Donald Trump and the Legacy of Bacon’s Rebellion

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 651-674
Author(s):  
Dale Craig Tatum
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Working Class ◽  
American History ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Bacon's Rebellion

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election was the biggest upset in American history. Trump propelled himself to victory by running a racist campaign that targeted the White working-class voters by assuring them that he would be their agent and would redeem the country on behalf their shared Whiteness by deporting Mexican immigrants, banning Muslims, and stopping and frisking African Americans. The racial wedge that Trump used was the result of the enduring legacy of Bacon’s Rebellion in the United States.

The Other America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harris Beider ◽  
Kusminder Chahal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Mainstream Society ◽  
The Right

Widely stereotyped as anti-immigrant, against civil-rights, or supporters of Trump and the right, can the white working class of the United States really be reduced to a singular group with similar views? This book begins with an overview of how the term “white working class” became weaponized and used as a vessel to describe people who were seen to be “deplorable.” The national narrative appears to credit (or blame) white working-class mobilization across the country for the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections. Those who take this position see the white working class as being problematic in different ways: grounded in norms and behaviors that seem out of step with mainstream society; at odds with the reality of increased ethnic diversity across the country and especially in cities; blaming others for their economic plight; and disengaged from politics. Challenging populist views about the white working class in the United States, the book showcases what they really think about the defining issues in today's America—from race, identity, and change to the crucial on-the-ground debates occurring at the time of the 2016 U.S. election. As the 2020 presidential elections draw near, this is an invaluable insight into the complex views on 2016 election candidates, race, identity and cross-racial connections.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 370-382
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
1960S And 1970S

The conclusion looks at the implications of the failure to organize southern workers for the United States today and asks how successful southern organizing might have led to different outcomes. Foremost is the possibility that the civil rights movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s would have been much more powerful if more white working-class support had been enlisted. This possibility, which the book asserts was real, had the potential to make the contemporary social and political landscape of the United States vastly different.

Measuring the Southern Contribution to the Democratic Coalition

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 567-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Abramson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Survey Research ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Demographic Groups ◽  
Election Studies

Measuring the southern contribution to the Democratic coalition is an important task. To measure this contribution one must choose appropriate data and the appropriate unit of analysis for studying party coalitions in the United States. Two recent studies of party coalitions use the National Election Studies to estimate the southern contribution to the Democratic party, and these studies illustrate the problems one may encounter. This note demonstrates two points. First, survey research results may lead to erroneous estimates and it is preferable, where possible, to rely upon official election statistics. Second, the contribution of demographic groups to party coalitions should be assessed within the context of the political rules that make such coalitions meaningful.

scholarly journals Perceived Discrimination against Black Americans and White Americans

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence J. Zigerell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Election ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Time Series Study ◽  
United States Today ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
Series Study

A widely-cited study reported evidence that White Americans reported higher ratings of how much Whites are the victims of discrimination in the United States than of how much Blacks are the victims of discrimination in the United States. However, much fewer than half of White Americans rated discrimination against Whites in the United States today to be greater or more frequent than discrimination against Blacks in the United States today, in data from the American National Election Studies 2012 Time Series Study or in preregistered analyses of data from the American National Election Studies 2016 Time Series Study or from a 2017 national nonprobability survey. Given that relative discrimination against Black Americans is a compelling justification for policies to reduce Black disadvantage, results from these three surveys suggest that White Americans' policy preferences have much potential to move in a direction that disfavors programs intended to reduce Black disadvantage.

Fathering Orphans

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessie B. Ramey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Working Class

This chapter begins with the James Caldwell story, which brings the experience of fathers into sharp relief—a significant, and all but forgotten, aspect of orphanage history—as well as the broader history of child care, in the United States. While many orphanage children had living fathers, the institutional managers constructed “orphans” as fatherless, perpetuating a gendered and racialized logic of dependency. Yet for those men using the orphanages as a form of child care, their experiences as widowers differed from those of solo women with children. Furthermore, the experiences of African American and white working-class men were also quite different. Ultimately, the orphanages help reveal the extent to which each group of men was involved with the care of their children, as well as the connection between their breadwinning role and family life.

The challenges of cross‑racial coalition building

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
Harris Beider ◽  
Kusminder Chahal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Strategic Plan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines the possibilities of building cross-racial coalitions between the white working class and communities of color as the United States transitions from majority white to a minority white country. Fifty years after the campaign for civil rights and the passage of landmark legislation during the 1960s, there is little evidence of formal and sustainable cross-racial coalition building at the grassroots or grasstops level between the white working class and communities of color. White working-class communities wanted to engage with communities of color but did not have the means of engaging across racial boundaries beyond a superficial everyday level. Discussions between different communities were “soft-wired” and based on fleeting exchanges in informal spaces rather than becoming “hard-wired” in a strategic plan that can create a framework for coalition building. Stakeholders were largely ambivalent and occasionally hostile toward engaging with white working-class communities to build effective cross-racial alliances. Similar to white working-class communities in relation to communities of color, stakeholders found it challenging to engage with these groups.

scholarly journals Political Conversations in the United States: Who Talks to Whom, Why, and Why Not

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Earl Bennett ◽  
Bonnie Fisher ◽  
David Resnick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
National Election ◽  
Logit Analysis ◽  
Social Surveys ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The U.S

Although normative political theorists have argued that citizens talking with other citizens about public affairs is essential in a democracy, empirically oriented political scientists have tended to ignore political discussions. This paper draws on National Election Studies and General Social Surveys to plumb the extent and breadth of political conversations in the U.S. We also explore who talks about public affairs, with whom they speak, and why some people avoid discussing politics. A logit analysis of pooled National Election Studies from 1984 to 1992 shows that some factors typically thought to affect taking part in politics are not significant predictors of the probability that people will engage in political discussions, but other variables not normally included in participation models do affect talking about politics.

scholarly journals Why the White Working-class Mortality and Morbidity Is Increasing in the United States: The Importance of the Political Context

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Navarro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
The Social ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
White Working Class

This article analyzes critically the most recent scientific bibliography on the causes of the growth of mortality and morbidity in the white working class of the United States. The methodology used in these studies, and also the insufficient conceptualization of the variables used (such as social class), limits the understanding of the increment of the “diseases of despair” in that sector of the population. This article emphasizes the need to analyze the evolution of the social classes in the United States, and the political determinants that have changed not only the character and composition of that class, but also the power differentials between this class and other classes in the United States.

scholarly journals Him, Not Her: Why Working-class White Men Reluctant about Trump Still Made Him President of the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311773648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Francis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Class ◽  
White Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Large Margin ◽  
Qualitative Work ◽  
White Working Class

There are many hypotheses for why working-class white men supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by such a large margin (71 percent to 23 percent), yet little systematic qualitative work has been done on how these men understood their votes. On the basis of interviews with 20 white, working-class men from rural Pennsylvania, the author finds that many of these men expressed concerns about both candidates, yet most who voted still chose Trump. Why? The men described the choice as one between a business-minded outsider and an entrenched politician, yet the decisive factor for most was simply that Clinton was more objectionable, often for reasons beyond her policies. This finding suggests that aversion to Clinton, rather than the appeal of Trump, might be a more complete explanation for Trump’s margin of victory among white, working-class men.

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