{"id":11582,"date":"2023-08-31T13:06:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T13:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11582"},"modified":"2023-08-31T13:06:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T13:06:10","slug":"i-regret-to-report-the-economic-anxiety-theory-of-trumpism-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=11582","title":{"rendered":"I regret to report the economic anxiety theory of Trumpism is back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“the best evidence typically points toward identity-based explanations: Racial and cultural conflicts are far, far more important than the kind of economic alienation Brooks wants to highlight. This is true not only in the United States but in other countries facing similar challenges from far-right populist movements<\/a> \u2014 important comparison points that Brooks entirely leaves out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brooks\u2019s column makes some important points, particularly about the flaws in the American economic model. But it\u2019s one thing to point out those flaws, and another thing to posit that (as a matter of fact) they are behind the great divides in our politics \u2014 when in fact they are not.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A 2022 paper by two political scientists<\/a>, Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zack Crowley, examined this theory explicitly: testing a sense of political and cultural alienation (what they call \u201csymbolic\u201d concerns) versus a sense of economic deprivation in predicting rural voter support for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 They found that \u201conly the symbolic subdimensions of rural consciousness positively and significantly correlate with Trump support.\u201d If anything, they found, rural voters who feel more economically deprived are less <\/em>likely to vote for Trump than their peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, a 2020 paper found that Trump supporters in poorer areas tend to be the \u201clocally affluent whites<\/a>:\u201d people whose incomes might not put them in the national one percent, but who are doing a fair sight better than others in the same zip code. Think plumbers and auto dealers, not laid-off factory workers.”   
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Let me propose an alternative theory \u2014 one that aligns much better with the available evidence than the economic anxiety idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story starts with the late 20th-century revolution in social values: the end of segregation, mass nonwhite immigration, feminist challenges to patriarchy, a decline in traditional Christianity, and the rise of the LGBTQ<\/a> movement. This revolution has transformed America at fundamental levels: the kinds of people who hold positions of power, the ideas that command cultural respect, and even the kinds of food Americans eat and languages they speak in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For millions of Americans, these changes made them feel unmoored from their country\u2014 \u201cstrangers in their own land<\/a>,\u201d as the sociologist Arlie Hochschild put it. Whether because of pure bigotry or a more diffuse sense of cultural alienation from the mainstream, a large number of Americans came to believe that they are losing America. For historical reasons owing largely to the legacy of the civil rights movement<\/a>, these voters became concentrated in the Republican party \u2014 forming at least a plurality of its primary electorate. The election of Barack Obama, a self-described \u201cBlack man with a funny name,\u201d pushed their sense of social alienation to the breaking point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This cultural anxiety created room for Trump, who rode this group\u2019s collective resentments to control of the Republican party. It is not the only reason he won the presidency \u2014 in a close election like 2016, a million different things likely made the difference \u2014 but it is the most important reason why he has maintained a lock on the Republican party for the better part of a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know this, primarily, because social scientists have been testing the theory since 2016 \u2014 and comparing it with Brooks\u2019s preferred explanations rooted in resentment at a rigged economic game. Again and again, the cultural theory has won out.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“in 2018<\/a>, a trio of scholars used survey data to compare explanations of Trump support based on racism, sexism, and a sense of economic alienation. The former two are far more powerful predictors than the latter, almost entirely explaining Trump\u2019s surge in support among white non-college voters. \u201cControlling for racism and sexism effectively restores the education gap among whites to what it had been in every election since 2000,\u201d they write<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2018 report<\/a> from the Voter Study Group, authored by pollster Robert Griffin and political scientist John Sides, tested what they called the \u201cprevailing narrative\u201d of the 2016 election that \u201cfocused heavily on the economic concerns of [the white working class].\u201d They found that typical methods of measuring economic distress were flawed and that more precise measurements show little effect on the 2016 outcome. \u201cInstead,\u201d they write, \u201cattitudes about race and ethnicity were more strongly related to how people voted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2018 paper by Alan Abramowitz and Jennifer McCoy<\/a>, two leading political scientists, tested correlations between white voters\u2019 favorable views of Hillary Clinton<\/a> and Trump and a battery of different variables. What they found, at this point, shouldn\u2019t surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter party identification, racial\/ethnic resentment was by far the strongest predictor of relative ratings of Trump and Clinton \u2014 the higher the score on the racial\/ethnic resentment scale, the more favorably white voters rated Trump relative to Clinton,\u201d they write. \u201cThe impact of the racial\/ethnic resentment scale was much stronger than that of any of the economic variables included in the analysis, including opinions about free trade deals and economic mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are three studies from a single year. There are dozens of other papers, reports, and even entire books coming to similar conclusions. These studies don\u2019t explain everything about Trump or Republican support<\/a> \u2014 such as the party\u2019s recent gains among Black and especially Latino voters<\/a> \u2014 but they do an excellent job answering the question that Brooks poses in his column: Why does Trump maintain such a hard core of support despite everything that he\u2019s done?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2023\/8\/4\/23818817\/trump-support-david-brooks-economic-anxiety<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“the best evidence typically points toward identity-based explanations: Racial and cultural conflicts are far, far more important than the kind of economic alienation Brooks wants to highlight. This is true not only in the United States but in other countries facing similar challenges from far-right populist movements \u2014 important comparison points that Brooks entirely leaves out.
\nBrooks\u2019s column makes some important points, particularly about the flaws in the American economic model. But it\u2019s one thing to point out those flaws, and another thing to posit that (as a matter of fact) they are behind the great divides in our politics \u2014 when in fact they are not.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“A 2022 paper by two political scientists, Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zack Crowley, examined this theory explicitly: testing a sense of political and cultural alienation (what they call \u201csymbolic\u201d concerns) versus a sense of economic deprivation in predicting rural voter support for Trump.<\/p>\n

They found that \u201conly the symbolic subdimensions of rural consciousness positively and significantly correlate with Trump support.\u201d If anything, they found, rural voters who feel more economically deprived are less likely to vote for Trump than their peers.<\/p>\n

Similarly, a 2020 paper found that Trump supporters in poorer areas tend to be the \u201clocally affluent whites:\u201d people whose incomes might not put them in the national one percent, but who are doing a fair sight better than others in the same zip code. Think plumbers and auto dealers, not laid-off factory workers.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Let me propose an alternative theory \u2014 one that aligns much better with the available evidence than the economic anxiety idea.<\/p>\n

This story starts with the late 20th-century revolution in social values: the end of segregation, mass nonwhite immigration, feminist challenges to patriarchy, a decline in traditional Christianity, and the rise of the LGBTQ movement. This revolution has transformed America at fundamental levels: the kinds of people who hold positions of power, the ideas that command cultural respect, and even the kinds of food Americans eat and languages they speak in public.<\/p>\n

For millions of Americans, these changes made them feel unmoored from their country\u2014 \u201cstrangers in their own land,\u201d as the sociologist Arlie Hochschild put it. Whether because of pure bigotry or a more diffuse sense of cultural alienation from the mainstream, a large number of Americans came to believe that they are losing America. For historical reasons owing largely to the legacy of the civil rights movement, these voters became concentrated in the Republican party \u2014 forming at least a plurality of its primary electorate. The election of Barack Obama, a self-described \u201cBlack man with a funny name,\u201d pushed their sense of social alienation to the breaking point.<\/p>\n

This cultural anxiety created room for Trump, who rode this group\u2019s collective resentments to control of the Republican party. It is not the only reason he won the presidency \u2014 in a close election like 2016, a million different things likely made the difference \u2014 but it is the most important reason why he has maintained a lock on the Republican party for the better part of a decade.<\/p>\n

We know this, primarily, because social scientists have been testing the theory since 2016 \u2014 and comparing it with Brooks\u2019s preferred explanations rooted in resentment at a rigged economic game. Again and again, the cultural theory has won out.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“in 2018, a trio of scholars used survey data to compare explanations of Trump support based on racism, sexism, and a sense of economic alienation. The former two are far more powerful predictors than the latter, almost entirely explaining Trump\u2019s surge in support among white non-college voters. \u201cControlling for racism and sexism effectively restores the education gap among whites to what it had been in every election since 2000,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

A 2018 report from the Voter Study Group, authored by pollster Robert Griffin and political scientist John Sides, tested what they called the \u201cprevailing narrative\u201d of the 2016 election that \u201cfocused heavily on the economic concerns of [the white working class].\u201d They found that typical methods of measuring economic distress were flawed and that more precise measurements show little effect on the 2016 outcome. \u201cInstead,\u201d they write, \u201cattitudes about race and ethnicity were more strongly related to how people voted.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2018 paper by Alan Abramowitz and Jennifer McCoy, two leading political scientists, tested correlations between white voters\u2019 favorable views of Hillary Clinton and Trump and a battery of different variables. What they found, at this point, shouldn\u2019t surprise you.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter party identification, racial\/ethnic resentment was by far the strongest predictor of relative ratings of Trump and Clinton \u2014 the higher the score on the racial\/ethnic resentment scale, the more favorably white voters rated Trump relative to Clinton,\u201d they write. \u201cThe impact of the racial\/ethnic resentment scale was much stronger than that of any of the economic variables included in the analysis, including opinions about free trade deals and economic mobility.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are three studies from a single year. There are dozens of other papers, reports, and even entire books coming to similar conclusions. These studies don\u2019t explain everything about Trump or Republican support \u2014 such as the party\u2019s recent gains among Black and especially Latino voters \u2014 but they do an excellent job answering the question that Brooks poses in his column: Why does Trump maintain such a hard core of support despite everything that he\u2019s done?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,217,165,509,170,386],"class_list":["post-11582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-economics","tag-economy","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11583,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions\/11583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}