Following Donald Trump’s victory, a familiar narrative has emerged: Democrats failed to connect with the concerns of working-class voters. To remedy this, they must take seriously working people’s preoccupations and interests as they define them, without imposing elitist assumptions about what their “true” interests are or ought to be.
The problem is there can be a gap between what voters feel they want and the truer interests they would acquire if they had more information, say, or were less angry. Far from respecting them, taking Trump voters’ stated concerns at face value risks a shallow, one-dimensional view of who they are or might yet be. It also ignores how power dynamics shape perceived self-interest in the first place.
We now know that a multiracial working-class coalition of people without college degrees came out for Trump in significant numbers. These are people whose communities have been disproportionately ravaged by globalisation, who were hit hardest by the financial crisis, who are more likely to be obese, to report extreme loneliness, and to die from addiction and suicide. When you appreciate the depth of this pain, while also appreciating that roughly $50 trillion dollars has flowed from the bottom 90 per cent of Americans to the top 1 per cent over the past 40 years, you begin to understand these voters’ contempt for the status quo and fury at establishment elites they see as entrenching it. It is little wonder that Trump’s coalition is defined, above all, by distrust of government and institutions and animus towards the expert, college-educated class.
On the basis of the above, however, you might think that working-class people would vote for economic policy that narrows the wealth, opportunity and well-being gap that divides them from the elite. Interestingly, a slew of recent research, including by the political scientist William Marble, suggests this is not the case, a thesis which Trump’s re-election seems to further support. Despite Democrats raising minimum wages, investing heavily in manufacturing, backing unions, and seeking to expand health coverage, these policies didn’t translate into meaningful working-class support at the ballot box.
How should we explain this? Policy solutions are complicated, imperfect, involve compromise, and tend to bear fruit slowly. Quite plausibly, struggling working people have neither the time, energy, nor interest to tune into such details. Moreover, in the absence of true working-class consciousness, government programmes are readily perceived as handouts for the undeserving, offending working-class pride and aspiration. More concretely, if you lack faith in government and trust in institutions then policy talk, whatever its content, all too easily looks like tinkering at the edges of a rigged system.
Meanwhile, “post-material” concerns can take precedence. Those enraged by the status quo feel represented by a man who also styles himself as a victim of malign forces. This is not “representation” in the traditional sense, where politicians seek to advance their constituents’ material interests. But this sort of performed, emotive or aesthetic representation fosters a, mobilising sense of inclusion nonetheless. Angry, aggrieved people see themselves in a powerful figure who is also angry and aggrieved, and promising payback. Trump played to this dynamic hard and often, as when he said: “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” Autocratic movements the world over offer the bonding thrill of in-group dominance, enacting a collective sadism on vilified others. So, for those with a genuine interest in burning it all down—or “owning the libs” or punishing undeserving illegals—a vote for Trump is perfectly coherent and advances very real interests, albeit not strictly economic ones.
This explanation has the virtue of taking the professed interests of Maga diehards seriously, but does not thereby offer a particularly respectful or sympathetic portrait of who these people are. Voting out of rage may gratify an appetite for revenge and domination that leads to a short-lived sense of empowerment, but may come at the expense of a voter’s very real long-term interest in living in a world where rage and enmity do not reign unchecked, or where wealth and opportunity are more fairly shared. We should not be afraid to say this.
Autocratic ideologies work by making it hard for people to identify and express interests that threaten or run contrary to the will of the autocrat. It is dangerously naive to suggest that we must respect Trump voters by taking their immediate perspective at face value, when we know this perspective to be subject to deep strategic manipulation. Trump has turned working class pain—whatever its diverse causes—into hatred of the other, lust for dominance, and a desire for revenge. Voters’ interest in acting out those emotions is real and genuine, but this does not mean they might not come to acquire better, more rationally informed interests if only another party put forward a vision compelling enough to lift that ideological veil.
Are there ways to fight against the authoritarian logic of the Maga movement without seeming to disrespect or alienate the voters in its thrall? Can Democrats take working-class needs more seriously—including the need to feel “heard” —while repudiating the fear, anger and hatred with which those needs are now expressed? I think so, but it will involve thinking generously about what matters or could matter to these voters in a way that goes beyond their own current perspective on these questions. Democrats need to tell a story that connects with the pride and pain of working people and which offers a credible explanation for what ails them, while helping them see their interests in a different, fuller, and yes, more rational, light. Democrats risk foreclosing this possibility by treating these voters’ present perceived interests as sacrosanct.
