For a generation, America’s working class, as well as much of its middle class, lost political power. Rather than build their appeal on class interests, politicians kowtowed to Wall Street, Big Tech elites, university ‘experts’ and identitarian interest groups. But, as the 2024 presidential election clearly showed, the working class still has the clout to decide who gets put into the White House. Their choice of Donald Trump was a slap in the face to the ruling class.
The shift of working-class voters to the right, particularly those who work with their hands, has been developing for almost half a century. It accelerated during the pandemic, when their work largely kept the country functioning.
Although the number of college-educated voters has expanded, at least until recently, those without degrees still constitute around 60 per cent of the electorate. These are the voters most responsible for electing Trump, the first Republican nominee ever to win among low-income voters. In 2024, he won among non-college voters by 13 points. He even won over 44 per cent of union households, a proportion not won since former trade-unionist Ronald Reagan did so in the 1980s.
Perhaps most important in the long run, Trump also did well among Latinos, winning upwards of 40 per cent of their vote as a whole, and a majority of males. Many working-class Latinos preferred the immigrant-bashing Trump, because they are the ones who compete with and live in the same neighbourhoods as illegal migrants. His support won him formerly Democratic strongholds, from Texas’s Rio Grande Valley to California’s largely Latino interior. He also made major gains among African American males.
This working-class discontent is not unique to America. Similar patterns can also be seen in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Immigration has become a primary concern among these voters across the EU as well as Canada. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who wish to reduce immigration has soared. Roughly 60 per cent of Americans and a majority of Latinos support even ‘mass deportations’. Much the same shift of opinion has occurred in Europe.
Clearly, the party bases are shifting. As the corporate superstructure has moved to the Democrats, the GOP draws increasingly from small businesspeople, artisans and skilled workers. These voters never had much time for traditional Republican corporatism but felt abandoned by both parties.
Trade has been another central issue. Both parties have long embraced free trade and celebrated the inclusion of China in the World Trade Organisation. The result has been catastrophic for working-class voters. From 2001 to 2018, China’s huge trade surplus destroyed over 3.7million US jobs, notes the left-wing Economic Policy Institute. Similar losses have been experienced in the UK and in Europe. Germany, until recently an industrial powerhouse, is now losing much of its industrial base, notably in chemicals and cars, including the vaunted Mittelstand of small and medium-sized businesses. Even Volkswagen, creaking under electric-vehicle mandates, is closing factories for the first time in its history.
Read the rest of this piece at Spiked.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, via Flickr in Public Domain.
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