The fight over gay marriage this week runs through Rowan County, Ky., (population 25,000), where the local clerk won’t issue marriage licenses, and a judge ordered her to be jailed. … The country is full of counties like Rowan — places that are the exceptions to the dominant local culture, […] Read more »
Strange bedfellows: Donald Trump and the white working class
… Trump’s strongest supporters, roughly a quarter of Republican voters across the polls, are not dissuaded by any increased media scrutiny of their candidate. They have overlooked a series of faux pas that might have tanked other candidates. It appears, however, to be a constituency with whom he has barely […] Read more »
2016 Outsiders and the Economic Roots of Voter Anger
The conventional wisdom holds that those “outsider” presidential candidates in both parties who are resonating with angry voters–Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Ted Cruz (who casts himself as an outsider)–will eventually give way to more “electable” candidates. But the more those candidates rise in the polls, […] Read more »
Why Trump Is Here To Stay — At Least For A While
Donald Trump’s summer of defying political gravity is continuing, despite predictions that various missteps would damage him. Instead, he has surged even more after his controversial Fox News debate performance. But who exactly are the people backing the boisterous billionaire businessman? Some recent polls offer a glimpse into the Trump […] Read more »
More Americans See Themselves as ‘Haves’ Than ‘Have-Nots’
The majority of Americans, 58%, consider themselves to be “haves” in U.S. society, while 38% put themselves in the “have-not” group. The percentage of have-nots has more than doubled since 1988, but has been more stable in recent years. Meanwhile, the percentage of haves has held fairly constant, except for […] Read more »
Donald Trump’s Sales Pitch
Donald Trump’s campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again!” A better one might be “Only in America.” You could not ask for a better illustration of the complexity of ordinary Americans’ attitudes toward class, wealth, and social identity than the fact that a billionaire’s popularity among working-class voters has given […] Read more »