Whose Class Is It Anyway? The “White Working Class” and the Myth of Trump

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Sarah Jaffe
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Median Income ◽  
College Degrees ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
White Working Class

This chapter unpacks myths about the white working class and its support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Popular media wrongly suggest that millions of white, economically disadvantaged, uneducated blue-collar workers were responsible for Trump's victory. The chapter examines the evidence, showing that two-thirds of Trump voters made more than the median income but more than half of those without college degrees were in the top half of the income distribution. The chapter suggests that these voters were not motivated by enthusiasm about Trump's priorities but rather were protesting a system that had left them behind. The myth of the struggling white working-class voter, clamoring for Trump to make America great again, ignores the millions of working-class workers who are people of color and misunderstands racism. This chapter shows how important it is to listen to Trump voters, to understand why working-class people are angry, and to question the media's narrative of the white working class.

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.

Working-Class Culture as Political Participation: Reading Trump as Revolt Against a Middle-Class Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Liberty Kohn
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Knowledge Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Communication Style ◽  
Deep Foundations ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
White Working Class

The 2016 election cycle and ensuing presidency of Donald Trump has been attributed in large part to his support among working-class whites (Gest 2016, p. 193; Tyson and Maniam 2016). Their reasons for support, however, are open to interpretation. This article will suggest that elements of Donald Trump’s public communication style and ethos align with elements of working-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction. Trump’s anti-institutional, anti-government rhetoric reifies these components of working-class culture because of institutions’ and government’s deep foundations in middle-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction—and the working-class’s, especially the white working-class’s, alienation from these institutions, with the result being anger or apathy (Lareau 2003; Jensen 2012; Gest 2016). These values are often embedded in a master narrative that defines white working-class life as one of victimization (Hochschild 2016; Gest 2016; Cramer 2016). The article next suggests that Trump’s oft-used rhetorical framework of not just immigrants as threat, but of immigrants as protected and valued by institutions that overlook white workingclass concerns (Gest 2016), opens up one possible persuasive framework to legitimate Trump’s xenophobia and racism through white working-class attitudes.

scholarly journals ‘I Get Money for What I Like Doing Best’: The Class Origin of Young Blue-Collar Workers and their Commitment to Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1097-1113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Altreiter ◽  
Jörg Flecker
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Family Of Origin ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Manual Work ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
Class Origin

Applying Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction, this article deals with workers’ family-of-origin class position and the associated socialisation processes as systematic influencers of individual work orientations and commitment to work. It draws on a study of young blue-collar workers in Austria to argue how growing up in a working-class setting shapes dispositions that contribute to the commitment to manual work. The results show how these dispositions influence the assessment of work and, in particular, support a positive relationship with manual work and physical activity.

scholarly journals Unskilled blue collar workers: Bourgeois and/or authoritarian? Results from a small scale survey in Belgium

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans De Witte
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
White Collar ◽  
The Other ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
Conservative Attitude ◽  
Using Data

In this article, two contrasting theories on the attitudes of unskilled blue collar workers are confronted: the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis and the hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’. The ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis states that blue collar workersadopted the attitudes (and life style) of white collar workers, from whom they can no longer be distinguished. Lipset’s hypothesis of the ‘authoritarianism of the working class’, on the other hand, states that blue collar workers more strongly endorse a conservative attitude on socio-cultural matters and a progressive stand concerning socio-economic issues. Both hypotheses are tested using data from a small scale survey (N = 135) among unskilled blue collar workers and lower- and mid-level white collar workers from different large companies in the region of Leuven, Belgium. The results indicate that the interviewed unskilled blue collar workers still hold a set of attitudes that distinguishes them from the interviewed white collar workers. So, the ‘embourgeoisement’ thesis was refuted. Instead, the unskilled blue collar workers were more conservative on a socio-cultural level, and more progressive concerning socio-economic issues. These results are in line with Lipset’s ‘authoritarianism of the working class’ hypothesis.

The White Working Class and the 2016 Election

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Carnes ◽  
Noam Lupu
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Long Term Trend

Academics and political pundits alike attribute rising support for right-wing political options across advanced democracies to the working classes. In the United States, authors claim that the white working class offered unprecedented and crucial support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. But what is the evidence for this claim? We examine all of the available academic survey data gathered around the election, along with a number of surveys from prior elections. We test four common claims about the white working class in 2016: (1) that most Trump voters were white working-class Americans; (2) that most white working-class voters supported Trump; (3) that unusually large numbers of white working-class voters switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016; and (4) that white working-class voters were pivotal to Trump’s victory in several swing states. We find that three of the four are not supported by the available data, and the other lacks crucial context that casts doubt on the idea that Trump uniquely appealed to working-class Americans. White working-class Americans have been supporting Republican presidential candidates at higher rates in recent elections, but that process long predates 2016, and narratives that center on Trump’s alleged appeal obscure this important long-term trend.

scholarly journals Citizens Facing COVID-19: Inequalities and Vulnerabilities of the Working Class The World Before COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-276
Author(s):  
Carl E. D. Pierre
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Blue Collar Workers ◽  
The World

This paper relies on recent studies to describe the hardship of working-class people during the COVID-19 crisis, their vulnerabilities, and how social inequalities play a significant role in their exposure to the virus and its more severe and potentially deadly expressions. We show how existing inequalities before the pandemic, along with public policy, create the sanitary, financial, and economic disaster we are facing now. It is crucial to understand the pandemic's impacts on blue-collar workers and state-sponsored measures to fight against it. This essay also shows the need for further research on working-class issues such as their resilience to financial and sanitary hardship.

Ambivalent Relationships: London's Youth Culture and the Making of the Multi-Racial Society in the 1960s

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Fuhg
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Class Youth

The emergence and formation of British working-class youth cultures in the 1960s were characterized by an ambivalent relationship between British identity, global culture and the formation of a multicultural society in the post-war decades. While national and local newspapers mostly reported on racial tensions and racially-motivated violence, culminating in the Notting Hill riots of 1958, the relationship between London's white working-class youth and teenagers with migration backgrounds was also shaped by a reciprocal, direct and indirect, personal and cultural exchange based on social interaction and local conditions. Starting from the Notting Hill Riots 1958, the article reconstructs places and cultural spheres of interaction between white working-class youth and teenagers from Caribbean communities in London in the 1960s. Following debates and discussions on race relations and the participation of black youth in the social life of London in the 1960s, the article shows that British working-class youth culture was affected in various ways by the processes of migration. By dealing with the multicultural dimension of the post-war metropolis, white working-class teenagers negotiated socio-economic as well as political changes, contributing in the process to an emergent, new image of post-imperial Britain.

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