How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump

… Trump’s white working class supporters — who provide somewhere between 58 and 62 percent of his votes, according to data from NBC and ABC polls — have suffered a stunning loss of relative status over the past 40 years.

Their wages have stagnated or declined; the ascendance of minorities has threatened their cultural dominance; and the growth of an increasingly large and affluent upper middle class has pushed goods and services once viewed as theirs by right beyond their reach. …

The diminished status of white working class men, however, is not limited to dollars and cents. For some of these men, there is a less talked-about sense of status displacement that stems from the surge of women, including wives, girlfriends and daughters, into the work force. This has served to focus attention on the erosion of the traditional male self-image as provider and protector. CONT.

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times

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