{"id":14877,"date":"2024-09-30T16:32:43","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T16:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14877"},"modified":"2024-09-30T16:32:43","modified_gmt":"2024-09-30T16:32:43","slug":"trumps-biggest-fans-arent-who-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14877","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s biggest fans aren\u2019t who you think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“In 2020<\/a>, three political scientists studied how location and income affected white voters\u2019 voting decisions<\/a>. They found that, on a national level, poorer white people were indeed more likely to vote for Trump than richer ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when you factored in local conditions \u2014 the fact that your dollar can buy more in Biloxi<\/a> than Boston<\/a> \u2014 the relationship reverses. \u201cLocally rich\u201d white people, those who had higher incomes than others in their zip codes, were much more likely to support Trump than those who were locally poor. These people might make less money than a wealthy person in a big city, but were doing relatively well when compared to their neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put those two results together, and you get a picture that aligns precisely with Hochschild\u2019s observations. Trump\u2019s strongest support comes from people who live in poorer parts of the country, like KY-5, but are still able to live a relatively comfortable life there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this mean for how we understand the Trump-era right? It cuts through the seemingly interminable debate about Trump\u2019s appeal to \u201cleft behind\u201d voters and helps us understand the actual complexity of the right\u2019s appeals to region and class in the United States. America\u2019s divisions are rooted in less income inequality per se than is widely appreciated, and often tied to divisions inside of communities and social groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Stolen Pride<\/em>, Hochschild locates the heart of Trump\u2019s appeal to rural voters in emotions of pride and shame \u2014 including pride in their region\u2019s traditions and shame in what it\u2019s become in an era of declining coal jobs and rising drug addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Roger Ford, a KY-5 entrepreneur and Republican activist who serves as Hochschild\u2019s exemplar of Trump\u2019s \u201clocally rich\u201d base, Trump helps resolve those emotions by offering someone to blame. Ford may not be suffering personally, but his region is \u2014 and Trump\u2019s rage at liberal coastal elites helps him locate a villain outside of his own community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe based his deepest sense of pride, it seemed, on his role of defender of his imperiled rural homeland from which so much had been lost \u2014 or, as it could feel, \u2018stolen,\u2019\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford\u2019s comments to Hochschild shift seamlessly between economic and cultural grievances. In discussing his opposition to transgender rights, he situates it as the latest in a long line of dislocations that people in his region faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith all we\u2019re coping with here, we\u2019re having a hard enough<\/em> time,\u201d he tells Hochschild. \u201cThen you make it fashionable to choose your gender? Where are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comment might make it seem as if economic concerns are somehow prior to cultural ones, and people like Ford are angry at transgender people because of economic deprivation in coal country. But high-quality research tells a different, more complicated story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, scholars Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zack Crowley examined the political consequences of what they call \u201crural consciousness\u201d for politics<\/a>. They divide this consciousness into three component parts: \u201ca feeling that ruralites are underrepresented in decision-making (\u2018Representation\u2019) and that their way of life is disrespected (\u2018Way of Life\u2019) \u2014 both symbolic concerns \u2014 and a more materialistic concern that rural areas receive less resources (\u2018Resources\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they tried to use these different \u201csubdimensions\u201d of rural consciousness to predict Trump support among rural voters, they found something interesting. People who saw the plight of ruralities in cultural and political terms were most likely to support Trump, while those primarily concerned about rural poverty were, if anything, less likely to support him than their neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, these findings suggest that the story isn\u2019t simply that economic deprivation breeds cultural resentment. Trump\u2019s strongest supporters in rural areas tend to be angry that their regions don\u2019t set the social terms of American life: that they don\u2019t control the halls of power and that, as a consequence, both political and cultural life is moving away from what they\u2019re comfortable with. Economic decline surely exacerbates this sense of alienation, but it isn\u2019t at the heart of it<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/369797\/trump-support-class-local-rich-arlie-hochschild<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In 2020, three political scientists studied how location and income affected white voters\u2019 voting decisions. They found that, on a national level, poorer white people were indeed more likely to vote for Trump than richer ones.
\nBut when you factored in local conditions \u2014 the fact that your dollar can buy more in Biloxi than Boston \u2014 the relationship reverses. \u201cLocally rich\u201d white people, those who had higher incomes than others in their zip codes, were much more likely to support Trump than those who were locally poor. These people might make less money than a wealthy person in a big city, but were doing relatively well when compared to their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Put those two results together, and you get a picture that aligns precisely with Hochschild\u2019s observations. Trump\u2019s strongest support comes from people who live in poorer parts of the country, like KY-5, but are still able to live a relatively comfortable life there.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for how we understand the Trump-era right? It cuts through the seemingly interminable debate about Trump\u2019s appeal to \u201cleft behind\u201d voters and helps us understand the actual complexity of the right\u2019s appeals to region and class in the United States. America\u2019s divisions are rooted in less income inequality per se than is widely appreciated, and often tied to divisions inside of communities and social groups.<\/p>\n

In Stolen Pride, Hochschild locates the heart of Trump\u2019s appeal to rural voters in emotions of pride and shame \u2014 including pride in their region\u2019s traditions and shame in what it\u2019s become in an era of declining coal jobs and rising drug addiction.<\/p>\n

For Roger Ford, a KY-5 entrepreneur and Republican activist who serves as Hochschild\u2019s exemplar of Trump\u2019s \u201clocally rich\u201d base, Trump helps resolve those emotions by offering someone to blame. Ford may not be suffering personally, but his region is \u2014 and Trump\u2019s rage at liberal coastal elites helps him locate a villain outside of his own community.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe based his deepest sense of pride, it seemed, on his role of defender of his imperiled rural homeland from which so much had been lost \u2014 or, as it could feel, \u2018stolen,\u2019\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s comments to Hochschild shift seamlessly between economic and cultural grievances. In discussing his opposition to transgender rights, he situates it as the latest in a long line of dislocations that people in his region faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all we\u2019re coping with here, we\u2019re having a hard enough time,\u201d he tells Hochschild. \u201cThen you make it fashionable to choose your gender? Where are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n

This comment might make it seem as if economic concerns are somehow prior to cultural ones, and people like Ford are angry at transgender people because of economic deprivation in coal country. But high-quality research tells a different, more complicated story.<\/p>\n

In 2022, scholars Kristin Lunz Trujillo and Zack Crowley examined the political consequences of what they call \u201crural consciousness\u201d for politics. They divide this consciousness into three component parts: \u201ca feeling that ruralites are underrepresented in decision-making (\u2018Representation\u2019) and that their way of life is disrespected (\u2018Way of Life\u2019) \u2014 both symbolic concerns \u2014 and a more materialistic concern that rural areas receive less resources (\u2018Resources\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n

When they tried to use these different \u201csubdimensions\u201d of rural consciousness to predict Trump support among rural voters, they found something interesting. People who saw the plight of ruralities in cultural and political terms were most likely to support Trump, while those primarily concerned about rural poverty were, if anything, less likely to support him than their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Taken together, these findings suggest that the story isn\u2019t simply that economic deprivation breeds cultural resentment. Trump\u2019s strongest supporters in rural areas tend to be angry that their regions don\u2019t set the social terms of American life: that they don\u2019t control the halls of power and that, as a consequence, both political and cultural life is moving away from what they\u2019re comfortable with. Economic decline surely exacerbates this sense of alienation, but it isn\u2019t at the heart of it.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/369797\/trump-support-class-local-rich-arlie-hochschild<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[221,372,366,509,170,1277],"class_list":["post-14877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-income","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14877","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=14877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14878,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14877\/revisions\/14878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}