By now it has become quite clear that conservative parties in Europe and the United States have been gaining strength from white voters who have been mobilized around issues related to nationalism — resistance to open borders and to third-world immigration. In the United States, this development has been exacerbated […] Read more »
Middle-Class Identification in US at Pre-Recession Levels
The breakdown of social class identification in the U.S. has returned to pre-recession levels, with 2% saying they belong to the upper class, 62% to the upper-middle or middle classes, and 36% to the working or lower classes. CONT. Frank Newport, Gallup Read more »
Working-Class Republicanism
A new book tells the story of a president who made his name as an entertainer and a Democrat before moving to the Republican Party and then launching a bid for the presidency. This candidate won his party’s presidential nomination despite objections from some party stalwarts that he was unelectable […] Read more »
Can the Democratic Party Find New Voters?
The relentless focus on the white working class in the aftermath of the election of President Trump has overshadowed a much larger bloc of voters, the roughly 65 million service sector workers whose partisan loyalty is up for grabs. This immense and diverse employment sector is set to become a […] Read more »
The Democratic Party Is in Worse Shape Than You Thought
Sifting through the wreckage of the 2016 election, Democratic pollsters, strategists and sympathetic academics have reached some unnerving conclusions. What the autopsy reveals is that Democratic losses among working class voters were not limited to whites; that crucial constituencies within the party see its leaders as alien; and that unity […] Read more »
It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.
Media coverage of the 2016 election often emphasized Donald Trump’s appeal to the working class. The Atlantic said that “the billionaire developer is building a blue-collar foundation.” The Associated Press wondered what “Trump’s success in attracting white, working-class voters” would mean for his general election strategy. On Nov. 9, the […] Read more »