Trump's enablers are lawyers — not workers. Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images
Surely the white working class is to blame? It’s obvious that those who stormed the US Congress on January 6, 2021, were the very same people Hillary Clinton described as “the basket of deplorables”. They’re obviously racist, sexist and xenophobic. Why even bother checking?
Well, because it’s not quite as straightforward as that. According to the University of Chicago, 50% of the January 6 mutineers were either business owners or white-collar workers, and only 25% had no college degree.
Again and again, white working-class Americans have been slandered and cast as deranged MAGA fans in the national press. But the reality, as I reveal in my new book, is that Donald Trump’s most hardcore supporters are far wealthier and better educated than your ordinary American. The political scientists Noam Lupu and Nicholas Carnes have convincingly argued that only 30% of Trump voters in 2016 were white and working class.
The confusion partly stems from the misleading definition of “white working class”. The one widely used by pollsters and the media — “those without a four-year college degree” — is too simplistic. Many Americans without college degrees are financially better off than graduates; of the 2,600 top CEOs in America, 8% have no college degree. And while there are approximately 87 million working people in the US who have not finished college, almost a quarter of them are business owners, not workers. How could these bosses be in the same economic bracket as their employees?
We can get round this problem by tweaking the definition. In my research, I define the white working class as those who are in the bottom two-thirds of income distribution, and do not have four-year college degrees. The results have been quite extraordinary. I’ve found that, far from being a lost cause, this cohort has in fact become more liberal over the past several decades on key social issues concerning race, gender, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration. A 1996 General Social Survey found that 59.8% of white working-class respondents thought that gay sex was always wrong; by 2021, that number plummeted to 29.3%. During this time, attitudes towards gay adoption also changed. An American National Election Studies (ANES) survey in 2000 found that only 38.2% of respondents agreed that gay and lesbian couples should be legally permitted to adopt children. By 2020, that figure had risen to 76%.
Why, then, is the media so quick to demonise America’s white working class? The idea that the working classes have a penchant for demagogues was popularised by the 20th-century sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset. In his influential article, “Democracy and Working-Class Authoritarianism” (1959), he claimed that “ethnic prejudices flow more naturally from the situation of the lower classes than from that of the middle and upper classes in modern industrial society”. He argued that working-class and agrarian populists tended to dislike “civil liberties for unpopular political groups, civil rights for ethnic minorities, legitimacy of opposition and proper limits on the power of national political leaders”.
When it came to explaining the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the proudly working-class state of Wisconsin, Lipset’s essay appeared to have the answer: Wisconsin populists were clearly driven by “ethnic prejudices”. This view was gospel in the academic and political establishment until Michael P. Rogin, author of The Intellectuals and McCarthy (1969), deigned to look more closely at where the votes for McCarthy were cast. It turned out that working-class election districts voted against McCarthy. His real base of support came from small town professionals — the lawyers, business owners, and real-estate people who formed the traditional base of the Republic Party, especially in rural areas. The conservatives were in fact far more supportive of McCarthy’s assault on democracy than populist workers and agrarian progressives.
Today’s intellectuals have fallen into the same trap. Despite popular assumptions, Trump’s enablers consist of a vast horde of lawyers and businesspeople, similar to those who once supported Senator McCarthy. And then there are the media personalities and influencers who make their fortunes off the back of Trump’s success. In no way can these operatives be considered working-class.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeHow nice for the white working class that so many of them pass Les Leopold’s purity test for the acceptability of their social opinions. It doesn’t seem to occur to the author that a lot of business owners might not be richer than many employees of large corporations, nor that any political leader needs lawyers and other professionals to work for them. This article attempts to frame voting decisions and political engagement in purely economic terms. But most Americans don’t work in manufacturing and haven’t been the victim of mass lay offs in heavily unionised industrial sectors. Maybe a lot of folks vote Republican, or reject the entire political elite, for ideological reasons. They just don’t like the type of politics represented by the Labor Institution, by public sector trade unions, by bossy boot regulators, and by those who undermine the fabric of American society and sneer at what were until very recently almost universally shared US values.
Yes, I think this article perfectly illustrates the failure of Western elites to begin to grasp what the phenomenon they call ‘populism’ is about ie: the desire for social solidarity based on family, community and rewarding work Vs their open borders, devil-take-the-hindmost globalist free-for-all based on greed and corrupt ideology.
are those nostalgic for “what were until very recently almost universally shared US values” really attracted to Trump? What values are they then exactly?
I have a doctorate and am a member of Mensa. I voted for Trump, not because I expect the world to follow my values, but because I knew the alternative was going to be worse. For all his faults, and he has many, Trump didn’t rely on racial and gender divisiveness to attract votes. At the time, 2020, I was working in higher education. I voted for him because I wanted to see roll-backs in stultifying Title IX regulations, expensive and needless DEI positions, and social justice initiatives most of which are brazenly antisocial and unjust.
“I voted for him because I wanted to see roll-backs in stultifying Title IX regulations, expensive and needless DEI positions, and social justice initiatives most of which are brazenly antisocial and unjust.”
And did Trump deliver those wishes?
Unfortunately the Biden administration reversed many of his policies once they regained power. He did get the ball rolling, however, and now there is growing pushback toward this current strain of authoritarianism.
Thanks for the response which prompted me to do some research into aspects of US politics I’m unfamiliar with. (a great deal). I did discover that only one president who lasted for only one month, never signed an Executive Order and that Biden did campaign in part on dismantling his predecessor’s legacy, and moved quickly to undo some of Trump’s policies starting on day one. ‘In his first 100 days in office, Biden signed more than 60 executive actions, 24 of which were direct reversals of Trump’s policies.’ Needless to say I failed to find the list of 24.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/biden-laws-passed-priorities-to-get-done-executive-orders/index.html
However my guess is that every new president goes through the same process, even when there’s no change of party, if only to keep their name in the headlines and get their own programme underway and established.
The so called purity test is nonsense anyway – most people in the so called “bigoted” conservative or non college educated segments are pretty tolerant, as much so as their supposed betters.
What the deplorables are against is stuff like LGBT parades, pride days and school indoctrination, which has nothing to do with genuine tolerance of people.
Or issues like illegal immigration, which is then painted as “racism” by college educated liberals.
Ironically, the ones who are most intolerant of gays, genuinely sexist and racist are groups that strongly support democrats or leftist parties in Europe. Blacks, muslims, college educated liberal women, the worst of the lot, and almost 100% voting blocks for “progressive” causes.
True indeed the large percentage of blue collar workers are immigrants of the Latin persuasion; the whites are the ones on Fentanyl .
Factually, backs are.
“How nice for the white working class that so many of them pass Les Leopold’s purity test for the acceptability of their social opinions.”
Actually he’s making the point that America’s white working class does in fact substantially pass the purity test that Hillary Clinton deemed them to have failed through her stupid and ignorant dismissal of their attitudes and values when she called them “deplorables”.
Wow, what an extraordinarily smug, self satisfied, and condescending opinion piece pretending to be an “analysis”.
This so-called “journalist” needs to get out of his elitist bubble and travel through flyover country and actually have deep conversations with the people he’s looking down on.
Seriously, UnHerd? This piece is dross, and no amount of alchemy could turn it into gold. Disappointing.
What’s wrong with it? Any chance of some analysis from yourself?
Because it is very “Herd”! Woke and smug as you like.
Belief in community, nation and against mass immigration from much poorer and vet different countries is, you see, “BAD” by definition.
Suggestion, don’t engage with Unheard Reader, not worth your time I’m afraid. Doesn’t come here for understanding, only the usual disparaging of anything Trump because TDS. It’s boring and trite.
Is he/she “Champaign Socialist” in disguise?
He/She is a lonely troll. For good reason, obviously.
Your comment is more “smug, self-satisfied, and condescending” than the article you directed it against…
I’m getting increasingly bored of the UnHerd comment section. Whenever an article is published that doesn’t comform to ‘anti-woke’ opinion (which is becoming just as dogmatic as ‘woke’ opinion), the comments are infested with confirmation bias and stale talking points. Ironically UnHerd seems to have created a counter-Herd masquerading as independent thinkers.
The hit jobs keep coming: I love this quote; “Despite popular assumptions, Trump’s enablers consist of a vast horde of lawyers and businesspeople, similar to those who once supported Senator McCarthy.”
It’s not like the entire country voted for McCarthy. He had one seat in one state. It’s absurd to extrapolate his voters 50 years ago across time and space to the entire US today.
And just because the president of UAW supports Biden doesn’t mean most auto workers support him as well. In fact, Biden’s push for EVs is a direct threat to UAW members. EVs require less labour in drive train assembly and more labour in battery production, which is not covered by UAW members. Voting for Biden would be self destructive.
Senator McCarthy was right
Indeed he was and what does the author mean by his ‘assault on democracy’?
My experience as a union member was that union leadership individuals were every bit as elitist as any left leaning intellectual, with the added benefit of compulsory funding in the form of union dues. Unions have quite diverse membership and all don’t support leaderships political views.
I would like to see the data that backs up this analysis. But if he’s relying on government definitions of “business owners”, I am guessing those include every sole proprietor around. Most of whom ain’t remotely as rich as the typical managerial and professional class democrat.
It’s popular to blame Hitler’s ascendancy to support from the uneducated and unrefined. Yes, Berlin did not vote for Hitler. But the largest group of supporters, enablers, and functionaries of the Nazi party came from the educated and middle class.
And the upper classes desperate to hang on to their privileges!
Our upper class were no different and admired the chancellor when he first came to power.
However as usual, it all gets blamed on the lower orders for being too thick to know better.
Some things never change!
I’m all for a counter-intuitive reset of orthodox preconceptions, but 1) the evidence needs to be spelt out more clearly, particularly since redefinitions are involved; and 2) the US is a complex society with a number of regional “mini-national” traditions and histories, that need to be accounted for.
I’m thinking here of a Michael Lind essay from three years back, where he teased apart the regional and cultural traditions of different factions of the Republican party — https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/republicans-majority-michael-lind — and given that insight to the complexity of the situation, the current article seems a little over simplified. As I say, the argument here would need more substantiation, along Lind’s lines, to convince me.
Mr Leopold effectively likened supporters of Trump as racist, anti immigrant, McCarthyites and liars who are simply desperate for jobs. If that’s not clear to you, give it another read.
No. He didn’t. The author certainly disdains Trump, but you’ve just made a huge extrapolation from what he actually wrote.
It seems to me, as a somewhat impartial and yet educated observer, having come into this country at a late stage – if your main concern as a country is whether gay people can get married, rather than say rampant drug deaths, crime, poor education, spiralling national debt, mass illegal immigration, etc….
And you simultaneously lack any concern on whether marriage does any longer act as a stabilising mechanism and supports the family – for the gays or even for heterosexuals and society overall –
your country and society are probably done for.
Most middle class Americans marry members of the opposite sex, have children, buy homes, and pay their bills as soon as they can.
Scoldings over racist this and racist that, from an elitist but superficially educated group that exists largely within the media’s etheria, won’t win over the groups that are now unabashedly hostile to us, and threaten our core values of free markets, free speech, and free people.
My ancestors fought for the Union, not for the Confederacy. They never owned slaves, nor did they beat their wives, nor did they ever to my knowledge oppress anyone. They worked their own farms and their own factories or workshops. That’s what they all did until colleges and universities opened up to our middle classes after WWII.
The left’s feminists, race hustlers, and social justice activists are very thinly disguised Marxists. They represent a true threat to democracy and freedom. They are truly against our interests as men, as white skinned people, and as free, self actualized individuals capable of agency. Their words don’t say otherwise.
From the occasional conversation with a living, breathing black or brown person – something leftist “progressives” rarely engage in – I’m pretty sure they feel the same way. They don’t want elites within our government controlling the economy, either.
Or perhaps these issues are all connected? The upending of sexual, gender and familiy norms during the past fifty years is not unrelated to the economic uncertainty and cultural dislocation that you think are legitimate concerns.
PS. I dare you to find anyone who is concerned about gay marriage but not concerned about whether marriage ‘acts as a stabilizing mechanism’.
Sorry Unherd, I simply didn’t believe a word of this.
How can it possibly be true when it contradicts my prejudices?
Not ‘prejudices’. Knowledge drawn from personal experience as distinct from ignorance based on bad statistics.
It has always been the petty bourgeoisie at the core of far-right movements.
Actually working class people are worried about making ends meet and providing for the families. It’s only when you have a little more financial freedom and your own assets that you start tinkering around the edges and really focusing your attention on skin colour and sexual preferences.
Every single person on this website and comments section will be the petty bourgeoisie or hard-right middle class (or at least were before they retired). Yet they seem to really be struggling to reconcile that cognitive dissonance – all this time they thought they were on the side of the working people, the blood and soil types and the rise-at-5am good honest grinders.
Nope – afraid not – you’re just selfish and voting for your own interests to the detriment of the actual working class again!
ARE YOU the UnHerd reader that was critical of people making mass generalisations?
I don’t necessarily agree with all of what the author says, he has a few prejudices of his own (as do you) but it appears there are plenty of over educated middle class grifters on both the Left and the Right.
no although I recall someone making that criticism against me whilst themselves making a mass generalisation
Agreed… though “Every single person on this website and comments section will be the petty bourgeoisie or hard-right middle class” is a quite a stretch.
My complaint was about huge sums of public money being spaffed by (over educated) self serving political parties on consultants, Quangos, NGOs and “charities” on non productive activities and not public services (for the working class).
Soon after I signed up, the UnHerd “Team” requested that I change my screenname from Dude the Obscure to something closer to my real name, preferably first name and last initial, which I did, with a couple of extra letters to offset my abbreviated first name (which is on everything but my birth certificate now).
I’m fine with anything from full legal names (my respect) to cutesy, bizarre, or rude handles. But shouldn’t the seeming multitude of UnHerd Readers at least be individually numbered or something? You don’t even know which online persona you’re hearing from or responding to. Hardly a major world problem, but I don’t like that.
*Amen to the non-false equivalence of your Left and Right statement.
Unherd Reader is a troll, yes it’s overly used, but quite apt in this case. Rare if they add a jot to the conversation, nothing edifying. Just comes here to try to rile. It’s quite pathetic, really, more to be pitied.
CS is a troll because he simply smears people. UR makes arguments. You can agree or disagree with him, but he actually makes a case. CS just calls people names.
CS is pompous and patronizing.
off topic, but: Dude the Obscure? Genius.
I like Dude the Obscure that’s one of my favorite books.
Yes, that’s them. I suggest don’t engage with them, they’re only here to try to rile others who threaten them with some common sense thinking. There’s no desire to edify or add to the discussion in their posts, trust me.
Usual bigotry from you. Puerile, peevish, boring and trite and wrong of course. Yawn.
You’re being much too kind.
You really do love these sweeping generalisations, don’t you? All the above does is confirm that you are just as ‘petty bourgeois’ as the people you excoriate in yet another epic generalisation. Maybe try to be a bit less pompous, eh?
You draw clumsy caricatures in your head of groups of people you’re predisposed to dislike. Reread your post: “Every single person on this website…”, “you’re just selfish…” etc. You show little empathy or understanding toward others, just a desire to quickly judge and condemn those you believe are your enemies. You seem to have the reasoning of someone who believes that just because they enjoy limited success others aren’t permitted do better than them.
You are astoundingly wrong in saying Unherd readers are hard right. So it makes the rest of what you say invalid.
yeah most of us are trying to find a sensible ‘middle ground’ which is a challenge for sure…
Not sure how MAGA is a rejection of democracy; rather, in voting for Trump, the people are voting for someone who has their economic (and, possibly, social / cultural) interests at the heart of his message.
That ‘democracy is at stake’ point comes from the party bent on having its main opponent removed the ballot, the party colluding with social and regular media to silence various voices, and the party using the coercive power of the state and lawfare to attack everyday citizens.
You think?
Interesting. I actually did think the kid who played banjo in Deliverance was Trump’s campaign manager. Imagine my astonishment when I discover that he has ‘enablers’…who are not abjectly poor, and have some education (and who should know better).
On another note, who TF is this person?
You nailed it.
Today’s intellectuals have
fallen intocreated the same trap. — There; it’s fixed. There is no “fallen.” These pseudo-intellectuals know exactly what they’re doing. It’s Leftism 101 and was the case when they identified first as liberals and later, as progressives. Key to strategy has been to scapegoat the other side in some way – they vote against their self-interest, they’re not educated, they’re easily controlled, blah, blah, blah. And the right does a certain amount of this re: its counterparts.All this hand-wringing is less about Trump, per se, than in the realization that something is wrong. Badly wrong. The career politicians have made an utter mess of almost everything they touch. A normally functioning republic would have no room for the likes of Trump. He’d continue to be what he has always been – an interested observer, someone whose thoughts would be solicited, and of course, someone whose donations would be sought. But that would be it. I still don’t think he ran to win 2016; his approach was a notice to Repubs to stop being the mealy-mouthed party unafraid to gets its hands dirty, an affliction that has never troubled Dems.
Look where we are: for three years, the border has been overrun but only now is the left taking notice, mostly because the situation cannot be ignored. Crime has run wild since 2020 with stores closing, businesses pulling up stakes, etc., all while DA continue releasing criminals immediately back into the community. We’re awash in stuff like putting menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms on campus while ignoring how many barely literate young people “graduate.”
Whether myth or reality, MAGA people see the failure. They see it within the Repubs many of them put into office, too. Trump is different for NOT being part of our fabled Swamp. He has f-u money and is not beholden to this group of donors or that. At the same time, he’s just one guy confronting a system whose dysfunction was decades in the making. I doubt that he can do more than perhaps slow it down, and then perhaps be succeeded by someone who slows it further. Meanwhile, we keep pushing young adults steeped in DEI and victim politics into workplaces around the country while insisting that all will be well if only our team wins.
Yes. The basic problem with the idea that ‘government should be left to the people who know best’ is that there is actually no such thing. There is no technocratic priesthood of impartial and altruistic experts. They simply don’t exist. That’s why we need direct democracy, not the sham of ‘representation’.
i stopped reading when the writer falsely claimed Rudy Giuliani lied for Donald Trump. If you’re going to lie about that, nothing you write is credible.
OMG how could you not see him lying?!
Working class is not just economic. It is a culture. Many of us have gained degrees and built wealth. Outwardly we appear upper middle class, but inwardly we maintain our more pragmatic working class perspectives on society. Hope lies in the prols.
Working class is not just economic. It is a culture
—
Thanks for the brilliant definition!
—
Old Jerome was a board-walk. Everybody knows that the world is supported by the shoulders of Atlas; and that Atlas stands on a rail- fence; and that the rail-fence is built on a turtle’s back. Now, the turtle has to stand on something; and that is a board-walk made of men like old Jerome.
—
Schools And Schools by O. Henry
“Though white working-class Americans are often included in Trump’s photo ops, the archetypal MAGA face looks more like that of Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City, who has shamelessly and repeatedly lied for Trump.”
What insulting claptrap of millions of decent people. Yet Mr Leopold is not capable of seeing his own bigotry here, and that’s obvious throughout the article. Too ensconced in his own elitism he effectively paints Trump supporters in the professional class as liars. How blinkered this author is, and what a shame no one at Unherd could see it. Consequently the rot continues.
“And in any case, most white workers are not attracted to Trump’s racist dog-whistles or even his anti-immigrant position, but rather they desperately hope that he might be able to bring jobs back to America…”
This author knows, or should know, tarring anyone “Racist” is simply a way to silence them. He writes as if it’s a revelation, which it probably is to him, that actually those with more conservative views aren’t racist or anti immigrant. Wow! Isn’t he clever!!
Plus, if the author didn’t have such a closed mind on this subject he’d be able to be more honest. Trump is not “anti-immigrant”. He is against open borders allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter, mostly single males, some on the terrorist list, some extremely violent. Just like most of America is against this, of all stripes. It’s a mainstream opinion.
He posits Trump supporters are all “desperately” hopeful Trump will save them and their jobs. What absolute twaddle. If he’d bothered to find out he’d know jobs, while important, are low on the rung. A functioning society, that operates within the bounds of law and decency is more likely to be a priority.
This author has not studied his subject well and this elitist, predictable scribble makes that very clear. You may have your mind opened if you actually talked to more people with a conservative bone in their body, Mr Leopold, try it.
So disappointing. Please, do better Unherd.
“operates within the bounds of law and decency”
And you expect this from a sleazeball crook like Donald Trump?!?!
Good luck with that!
Forgot in my last post to include the fact that the author, and by association Unherd, appear now, among all the other pejoratives, to be trying to pin McCarthyite on millions of decent people. Well done at practicing McCarthyism yourself, Mr Léopold, branding and labeling those you can’t comprehend because they see things differently than you do. Some great journalism we’re being offered here I don’t think.
Why do you and others attribute to the editors of Unherd the views of its contributors? Is this not just an attempt at censorship?
Stopped reading when non-liberals were defined as a “lost cause”.
A bit ironic that an article trying to explain something struggles to understand its subject.
As a college-educated working-class white American male, I can confirm some of the points in this piece. It could talk more about red-pill conversions for people like me in the course of this young century.
I must point out that this reference “McCarthy’s assault on democracy” is out of place and, I think, no longer as certain an accusation than it’s been in the past.
I am struggling a bit to understand what point Les Leopold is trying to make in this article.
The fact that the people most engaged with and capable of promoting and assisting Trump are wealthy, educated people is hardly worth stating. Of course this will be true of any political figure…
The casual sneering at conservative political opinions is exactly the kind of behavior that makes οἱ πολλοί vote for Trump.
Trump is dumb as a post so what does that make anyone who votes for him? What does it make you people who blindly follow him even though he doesn’t have a clue where he is going? Who think he is a great businessman despite all the evidence to the contrary? Who think he is a Christian? Who think he is honest?
Believing any of these things means you are irretrievably stupid.
And now you had better all start raiding your piggie banks because he’s going to be coming hard at you for those donations now!
This is called TDS.
The name ‘unherd Reader’ is applied to those subscribers that have not completed their name in theUnherd Account Profile. ie their name in the profile section is blank.
Thank you Peter for the explanation.
I thought that guy had too much time on his hands.
Dear Les, this reads like an exercise in shifting blame and not seeing the point. the idea that you don’t represent the working class obviously makes you uneasy. rather than listen, you seek too convince yourself that the sole traders of America are not working class. Categorising them so that they are in a group you are happier to offend won’t change the electoral maths. This makes me uneasy because liberal America is giving Trump a free ride. Trump shouldn’t even be in contention for numerous reasons. This will be a difficult election for the Republicans to win because, with each month that passes, disposable incomes will be increasing ….it is yours to lose. Using illiberal means (and then denying it) to push your “liberal” agenda is clearly causing societal recoil.
Maybe Les Leopold has a point. But my direct experience of US politics is:
At the 1980 presidential caucuses I was surprised, as a Bush supporter, to see a bunch of white working class people at the meeting. They were for Reagan.
When viewing peaceful protests during the Tea Party year, the participants seemed to me to be very ordinary people.
During the 2016 election the houses that were bedecked with Trump regalia were in non-fancy neighborhoods.
When you look at the crowds at Trump rallies or the participants in Trump Car Parades and Trump Boat Parades they are rather obviously not executive directors of lefty think tanks like the Labor Institute or similar tippity-top chaps.
“It turned out that working-class election districts voted against McCarthy. His real base of support came from small town professionals — the lawyers, business owners, and real-estate people who formed the traditional base of the Republic Party, especially in rural areas. The conservatives were in fact far more supportive of McCarthy’s assault on democracy than populist workers and agrarian progressives”.
McCarthy dragged thousands of innocent American citizens many working in government, education and the trade unions before his committee for aggressive questioning. It was one of the most shameful episodes in modern American history with the number imprisoned in the hundreds, with some ten or twelve thousand losing their jobs. People like Leonard Bernstein, Dashiell Hammett, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman, Paul Robeson, Dorothy Parker and so on.
Given the popularity of those listed, is it really any surprise that it was “populist workers and agrarian progressives” who brought about McCarthy’s downfall?