The GOP is the Party of the Working Class?
Fact Check: False
As the final polls were closing on the 2020 US Presidential election Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent out the above tweet. Ever since the future leader of the Insurrection of 2021, Donald Trump, oozed down the escalator in 2015 many stories have been written about how this fake billionaire that shits in a toilet made literally of gold is the vengeful avatar of the working man. We have been told that this man-child whose tiny hands have been used to grab the naked bodies of paid off pornstars rather than a hammer or a wrench is the walking id of the plumbers, electricians and construction workers of this nation.
Trump and the GOP have done a great job pushing this message. Corporate media, “moderate” Democrats and Conservatism, Inc. have uncritically accepted the message and routinely use it to bash the Democratic party as being out of touch.
NBC News: NBC Exit Poll: Trump Dominates Among Working-Class Whites
The New York Times: Why Trump Won: Working-Class Whites
Vanity Fair: Inside How Trump Won the White Working Class
The Liberal Patriot: The Democrats’ Working Class Voter Problem
Fox News: Polls Show Democrats Becoming Party of Elites as Working Class and Minorities Shift Towards Republicans
But here’s the rub, it’s all bullshit.
WHO ARE THE WORKING CLASS?
Some definitions:
Merriam-Webster – “the class of people who work for wages usually at manual labor”
Dictionary.com – “those persons working for wages, especially in manual labor”
Cambridge Dictionary – “a social group that consists of people who earn little money, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work”
Some places try to expand the definition of working class by decoupling it from manual labor paid for via wages and instead defining the working class as those that have not earned a bachelor’s degree. I find this definition not workable as it would include people like Richard Branson (Virgin Records), Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) as member of the working class.
Working class voters are what Karl Marx called the Proletariat. Marx describes the working class Proletariat in Chapter 6 of Capital, Volume One:
“He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as a capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but – a hiding.”
For Marx, the working-class are the people who have nothing to sell but their labor and are open to exploitation by the Capitalist class due to the power imbalance in that relationship.
DID TRUMP LEAD TO A RISE IN WORKING CLASS SUPPORT FOR THE GOP?
Researchers Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu published “The White Working Class and the 2016 Election” on May 21, 2020 with Cambridge University Press. Carnes and Lupo note:
“In the growing literature on the Trump-centered narrative about white working-class voting in 2016, there has been remarkably little research using data on whether white working-class Americans voted for Trump, or whether 2016 was really all that different from prior elections.”
All of these claims that Trump won the working class vote at unprecedented numbers were made without even looking to see if the working class voters actually, you know, voted for Trump or voted for him at rates higher than previous elections.
Lupo and Carnes go on to examine four empirical claims about the 2016 election
Most of Trump’s voters were white, working-class Americans,
Most white, working-class voters supported Trump,
Large numbers of white, working-class 2012 Obama voters switched to Trump in 2016, and
White, working-class voters were pivotal in several key swing states
They reject all four claims by saying:
“We find that each of these claims is either false or misleading. Three do not square at all with available survey evidence; and the one that does (that most white working-class voters supported Trump) lacks crucial over-time context that casts doubt on the idea that Trump uniquely appealed to working-class Americans.”
On April 15, 2021 Lupo and Carnes published “ Trump didn't bring white working-class voters to the Republican Party. He kept them away.” a follow-up piece incorporating evidence from the 2020 election.
In this piece they publish two graphs, the first shows the percentage of GOP voters that are White and Working-Class:
The second shows the proportion of White and Working-Class voters who voted Republican:
These graphs illustrate that the part of the GOP that is made up of white, working-class voters has been remarkably stable since 1980. If anything it shows that Mitt Romney (of all people) brought in more white, working-class voters than Trump did or any other GOP candidate for the previous 30+ years.
The second graph shows that while the proportion of white, working-class voters went up for Trump’s first election in 2016 it dropped for the 2020 election. White, working-class voter support for Trump dropped 3% in 2020. That may not seem like a big deal but in elections this close any fall off in support can be fatal to a campaign.
If you haven’t noticed most of this discussion has been about the white, working-class. The working-class is made up of many more ethnicities than just white. If we stick with the definition that the working-class is the people who earn their income by exchanging manual labor for wages we can see that people making under $100,000/yr consistently vote Democratic. And in fact, Joe Biden's share of voters making less than $100,000/yr was more than that received by Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The only income group Trump won in 2020 was those making more than $100,000/yr. I don’t know about you, but to me that doesn’t scream working-class support.
DOES THE GOP SUPPORT POLICIES THAT WOULD HELP THE WORKING CLASS?
No.
Okay, that probably requires a little fleshing out.
What policies are supported by majorities of the working-class?
The Center for America Progress released a report in January 2020 that detailed the economic policies supported by working-class Americans in every state. These issues are:
Raising the minimum wage
Raising taxes on the wealthy
Increased spending on health care
Increased spending on education
Increased spending on infrastructure
The issues above not only receive the vast majority of working-class voter support but also enjoy majority support from voters that have a college degree.
Does the Republican party support raising the minimum wage? No.
Does the Republican party support raising taxes on the wealthy? No.
Does the Republican party support increased spending on health care? No.
Does the Republican party support increased spending on education? No.
Does the Republican party support increased spending on infrastructure? No.
A more accurate description of the Republican party is that they are the party of what they perceive are cultural values of white, working-class voters. They campaign to win the votes of the white, working-class by appealing to the cultural threat those voters feel they are under. In reality, the Republican party governs against the economic interests of those same white, working-class voters.
2022 and Beyond?
In the leadup to the 2022 midterms and as preview for the 2024 Presidential election season the Republicans may start finding themselves on the wrong end of the white, working-class on cultural issues. The Republican party has decided to block even the most benign and facile version of gun control legislation in the Senate. And this is after the school shooting in Uvalde, TX along with over 300 additional mass shootings this year. The GOP is also proposing maximalist anti-abortion legislation at the state level by criminalizing women and doctors for seeking abortion health care and even restricting the ability of women to cross state lines for fear that they may be seeking an abortion in another state.
People are getting mad. The generic poll has the Democratic party gaining on the Republican party and pulling even. It’s starting to get through to working-class voters that not only does the Republican party actively work against their economic interests, but the white sub-class of working-class voters may be coming to the realization that the Republican party also does not represent their cultural values either. A new poll released last week by the New York Times/Siena College illustrates this new anger from voters. For the first time it has Democratic voters more concerned than Republicans voters on cultural issues such as guns, abortion, and the state of our democracy.
The group view of American punditry is that the GOP will take over the House and maybe the Senate in 2022. However, the Republicans are doing their best to take what should be a very good cycle for them and turn it into a disaster. Republican primary voters are voting for the craziest, most extreme candidates. Republican state legislatures are passing laws post-Dobbs criminalizing women, restricting their movement, and putting their lives in danger. They are also loosening gun laws during a time when the nation has experienced over 300 mass shootings since the start of the year.
Republicans may be about to find out that just saying you support working-class voters is not enough. And I am here for it.