On October 9, I posted a blog on why we Dems lost the vote of many in the white working class, who until recently were the backbone of the Democratic Party. The culprit was NAFTA, which beginning in 1994 has resulted in the loss of more than 4.5 million blue collar jobs, including many union jobs, as trade barriers disappeared and factories moved to Mexico and other low wage countries. I learned about this from my favorite podcast, The New York Times Daily. “Oh,” I said to myself, “So that explains it.”
Well, today, October 29, on another walk on a spectacular fall afternoon with blazing colors and a chill in the air, I again listened to a Daily podcast. Michael Barbaro was interviewing David Leonhardt of The New York Times, one of my favorite New York Times writers, who now writes the online “Morning Newsletter” and contributes to the Sunday Review. He is smart, progressive, empathetic and anything but a Trump supporter. It was another one of those Ah Ha moments. The discussion was on immigration. Leonhardt began studying immigration as part of the research for his latest book, Ours Was the Shining Future, The Story of the American Dream. He explained how immigration has hammered the American working class. At the same time when the good paying, union jobs were disappearing due to NAFTA, a huge influx of immigrants began arriving in the United States, both legal and illegal, competing for the lower paying, blue collar jobs that remained. In other words, it was a double whammy.
Elites in both parties supported more relaxed and confusing immigration policies. For businesses a relaxed immigration policy provided an expanded labor pool that kept wages low. For liberals and progressives, it became a righteous cause in reaching out to oppressed people and expanding the American dream. Leonhardt explained the pros and (mostly) cons of our immigration policies starting with Bill Clinton and how for a long time, the system has been broken without a national consensus on how to fix it. This has been a national phenomenon that few people, on the Right or on the Left, have been happy with. And those who feel they have lost the most—the (mostly) white working class—have experienced the pain firsthand. In 2015 Trump sensed this sour mood, which gave him an opening that he exploited to win the 2016 election. As president Trump built a portion of the Wall and implemented horrific policies separating families and denigrating immigrants but did not fix the immigration problem. The influx of over a million immigrants a year continued and increased under Biden. Republicans and Democrats finally agreed on a strong border and immigration bill last spring, but Trump ordered the Republicans to ditch it so that it would not give the Democrats any ammunition on the immigration issue. Both parties have failed on this issue.
(Note that the immigration issue affects the Black working class probably even more than the white working class and Trump is trying to gain ground here as well though due to the racial divide in this country, anti immigration sentiment has so far not gained the foothold among the Black community that it has in the white community.)
So, in addition to the good jobs exported under NAFTA, immigration is the other shoe that has dropped for working class people and is one reason that many have become Trump supporters. Good heavens, no wonder so many are angry and have gone to the Dark Side! They have good reason to be angry. While it is easy to point a finger at these people for being “stupid,” “uneducated,” “misguided,” “racists,” or “prejudiced,” that reveals the class divide that exists in our country and is also a blemish on us “elites,” who got the lucky breaks regarding education, careers and income, not that we are better people. That working class people often perceive that we look down on them is another factor in their discontent. Shame on us!
This is not to say that it is ok to support Trump. It isn’t. He is a wannabe fascist, who if elected would destroy the soul of America. However, understanding the grievances of the working class helps me understand why Trump has the support of so many people. Until we address the inequities and class divisions that exist in the United States of America, the problem will continue.
Of course, Trump’s support comes from more than the alienated white working class. The tech bros like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and many other billionaires see Trump as a means to more wealth. And the likes of Jeff Bezos and the owner of The Los Angeles Times have not endorsed a candidate presumably for fear of retribution if Trump wins. It appears CEOs of many major corporations are also keeping silent, afraid like the others of retribution. There are many who support Trump only because they think that they personally will benefit from more tax savings and fewer regulations. And there are libertarians, traditional conservatives and evangelicals who have their own—in my view mysterious– reasons for supporting Trump.
The sad thing is that those in the working class who are supporting Trump have picked the wrong horse. It is a classic bait and switch. Trump portrays himself as their savior and their retribution even though he champions policies which will shred the social safety net. He will fight labor unions, oppose increases in the federal minimum wage, impose high tariffs on cheap goods made in China, try to kill the ACA (again!), and reduce taxes for large corporations and billionaires. And even more frightening, he will arrest millions of immigrants, put them in holding camps, and deport them. He will rule as a dictator. The very thought of his becoming president again is too frightening to contemplate. And the election is now less than a week away with both candidates locked in a virtual tie according to the polls
Thanks for your write up, Joe. Just maybe Harris and Walz
Can pull something together.
Thank you, Joe. Some areas that are deeply MAGA are barely touched by immigration. For example, in the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky, which is the whitest and second-poorest Congressional district in the country and 80% Trump, as covered in the new book “Stolen Pride.”
So it is a complex story and one that is also driven by “fear of the other” as fomented by right-wing media. People can have fears of things even if they do not personally affect them.
Three articles of note:
Trump is anti-worker. Here are 10 of his most shocking anti-worker statements
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/23/trump-anti-worker-union-statements
87 things Donald Trump has said about women
https://theweek.com/donald-trump/655770/61-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-women
If You Think Biden and Harris Were Weak on the Border, Think Again
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/opinion/biden-harris-border-immigration.html