In his next book Stolen prideSociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild recounts her time in the towns and hollers of Kentucky’s Fifth Congressional District—one of the whitest, poorest, and most Trump-supporting districts in the entire country. During her time there, she noticed something interesting about who was most excited about the Trump movement.
“Those who were most attracted to Donald Trump were not at the very bottom—the illiterate, the hungry,” she writes. Instead, Trump’s biggest admirers can be found among the “left-wing elite,” meaning “those who were doing well in a region that was not.”
It is an observation that cuts against A popular theory of Trumpism: That it is the tribune of the left and poor white people who suffer because of globalization. It is also supported by hard data.
In 2020Three political scientists conducted the study How location and income affect the voting decisions of white voters. They found that, nationally, poor white people were actually more likely to vote for Trump than wealthy people.
But when you factor in local conditions – the fact is your dollar can buy more Biloxi Than Boston – The relationship is reversed. “Locally wealthy” white people, who had higher incomes than others in their zip code, were more likely to support Trump than locally poor people. These people might make less money than a rich person in a big city, but were doing relatively well compared to their neighbors.
Put those two results together, and you get a picture that aligns precisely with Hochschild’s observations. Trump’s strongest support comes from people who live in poorer parts of the country, like KY-5, but are still able to live a relatively comfortable life there.
So what does this mean for how we understand the Trump-era right? It demystifies the seemingly implausible debate about Trump’s appeal to “leftist” voters and helps to understand the real complexity of the right’s appeal to region and class in the United States. America’s divisions are rooted in less-than-appreciated income inequality, and are often linked to divisions within communities and social groups.
in Stolen prideHochschild finds the heart of Trump’s appeal to rural voters in feelings of pride and shame — including pride in their region’s traditions and shame at what has happened in an era of declining coal jobs and growing drug addiction.
For KY-5 entrepreneur and Republican activist Roger Ford, who serves as Hochschild’s example of Trump’s “locally affluent” base, Trump helps resolve those feelings by offering someone to blame. Ford may not be a victim personally, but his territory is — and Trump’s anger at liberal coastal elites helps him find villains outside his own community.
She writes, “He based his deep sense of pride, it seemed, on his role in his hapless rural homeland from which so much had been lost – or, as he might have felt, ‘theft.’
For Hochschild, Ford’s comments alternate seamlessly between economic and cultural grievances. In discussing his opposition to transgender rights, he presents it as the latest in a long line of injustices faced by people in his region.
“With everything we’re facing here, we’re having a hard time Enough Time,” he tells Hochschild. “So you make it fashionable to choose your gender? Where are we going?”
This comment seems to imply that economic concerns somehow precede cultural issues, and that people like Ford are angry at transgender people because of economic deprivation in coal country. But high-quality research tells a different, more complex story.
In 2022, scholars Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zach Crowley examined its political consequences. What he calls a “rural consciousness” for politics. He divides this consciousness into three components: “a feeling that rural people are underrepresented in decision-making (‘representation’) and that their way of life is disrespected (‘way of life’)—both symbolic concerns—and a more material concern that rural Areas receive fewer resources (‘resources’).”
When they tried to use these various “sub-dimensions” of rural consciousness to predict Trump’s support among rural voters, they found something interesting. People who saw the plight of rural areas in cultural and political terms were more likely to support Trump, while those who were primarily concerned about rural poverty were less likely to support him than their neighbors.
Taken together, these findings suggest that the story is not simply that economic deprivation breeds cultural resentment. Trump’s strongest supporters in rural areas are angry that their regions do not determine the social terms of American life: that they do not control the halls of power and that, as a result, both political and cultural life are slipping away. What they are comfortable with. Economic collapse certainly exacerbates this sense of isolation, however It is not in his heart.
This contributed to a more sophisticated understanding of rural white politics comprehensive Literature complex How we think about the class base of Trumpism, it could be Floridian Boat Paraders Or GOP mega-donors. This body of work suggests that the traditional class distinctions political commentators use—rural versus urban, elite versus working class, one percent versus the rest—are of limited utility in discussing the political economy of Trumpism.
To really understand what is happening on the right today, we need to look at the divisions within these broad groups.
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