Given the likely defeat of President Donald Trump, a functionally headless Republican Party is destined for a period of reflection. Trump himself, for all his rudeness and often unnecessary, divisive rhetoric, has transformed the Republican Party from being a bastion of the establishment to a voice for America’s working and middle class.
In the aftermath of Trump’s narrow defeat, the media will likely push “respectable” anti-Trump front groups, like the Democratic funded AstroTurf Lincoln Project and others who backed President-elect Joe Biden. But given Trump’s extraordinary support among Republicans, these onetime GOP media and political operatives have a stronger affinity with today’s Democrats who, increasingly, resemble the old Republicans, with lockstep support from the upper class, notably on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, as well as law and professional service firms.
Certainly, the “party of the people” is where the money is: Overall Democratic campaign spending has more than tripled since 2008, running this year about two times that for Republicans. The upcoming cataclysmic battle to win the Georgia Senate seats already started with a big Silicon Valley fundraiser. As the Democrats have gathered in the .01 percent, Trump won three-quarters of the white working-class vote, down slightly from 2016, but made significant gains with racial minorities.
American Needs A Middle- And Working-Class Party
The working class did poorly under former President Barack Obama, as well as his gentry Republican predecessors, while their incomes rose during Trump’s brief presidency before COVID-19. This may explain why even with the amiable Irishman Joe Biden atop the ticket, the Democratic brand is “not good” among working-class voters, as lamented by Rep. Tim Ryan who represents hardscrabble Youngstown in Congress. This conclusion was also drawn by the campaign experience of Presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
As of today, both the middle and working classes have little reason to adhere to a mainstream political party. The reasons go beyond cultural reaction or racism, as some progressives insist. When Trump lambasts free trade and China, he may alienate much of the corporate elite, but the message appeals to people and communities that lost, according to one labor-backed group, 3.4 million jobs between 1979 and 2017 to the Middle Kingdom.
Trump has done best with those who work with their hands, in factories, the logistics industry and energy; these working-class voters, notes a recent study by CityLab, repair and operate machines, drive trucks and operate our power grid. Some progressives suggest it’s time for Democrats to abandon the working class and rely instead on educated millennials, minorities, and professionals as well as globally oriented businesses. This seems likely to push the party away from lunch-bucket issues and into the insidious realm of identity politics.
The Racial Component
In 2016, Trump’s appeal to minorities was limited by his own nativist rhetoric, and, more so, that of his sometimes truly deplorable supporters, although he did no worse than gentry candidate Mitt Romney years earlier. This year he gained a significantly larger Latino vote, particularly in Florida and Texas (but not so well in California), and did better, albeit less impressively, among African Americans. Overall, he won the highest percentage of minority votes than any Republican since 1960.
The reasons for this pattern seem obvious. Latinos are heavily represented in blue-collar professions, notably in the service fields, construction, logistics and manufacturing. They have generally done better under President Trump than previous administrations and have been most hurt by lockdowns, high energy prices and curbs on suburban housing.
Read the rest of this piece at Daily Caller.
Joel Kotkin is the author of the just-released book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute — formerly the Center for Opportunity Urbanism. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin
Photo credit: Michael Seeley via Wikimedia under CC 2.0 License.
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