Donald Trump and JD Vance are cobbling together a core constituency that includes millions of voters who are both culturally conservative and financially hard-pressed.
Trump’s selection of Vance reflects his determination to focus on incorporating middle- and lower-income, predominantly but not exclusively white men and women who often did not graduate from college, into the base of the Republican Party. To do so, Trump and Vance are taking their side on matters ranging from diversity to abortion to immigration to trade policy, promising protection from pretty much everything they don’t like about America today.
The 2024 Republican Platform provides evidence of the leverage of this ascendant bloc of voters:
“Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age.”
“Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
“Keep men out of women’s sports.”
If more proof is required, Vance told delegates in his July 18 acceptance speech:
We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike. A leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for American companies and American industry.
As always, America’s ruling class wrote the checks. Communities like mine paid the price. For decades, that divide between the few, with their power and comfort in Washington, and the rest of us, only widened.
What is happening here? “For many years,” Elizabeth Suhay, a political scientist at American University, wrote by email,
the Republican Party managed to persuade many working class whites to support their economic agenda, not only by contrasting it with Democrats’ emphasis on racial equity, but also by arguing that small government, economically conservative policy rewards hard work.
The persuasiveness of this message waned, however, with increasing inequality, low income growth, rural job loss, etc., creating an opening for Trump. His 2016 campaign directly addressed working class whites’ economic concerns, even if his policies in office generally did not.
With the Vance pick, we are seeing an even greater rhetorical shift toward economic populism aimed directly at working class and rural voters, and it is likely that a second Trump term would advance more populist policy than the first.
There is a clear underlying logic to the Trump 2024 agenda, according to Christine Reyna, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, who wrote by email:
Regarding the seemingly contradictory policies of the MAGA platform, they actually align perfectly with a populist agenda. Populism not a stand-alone ideology so much as a framework/narrative that centers the grievances and needs of the ‘noble’ citizens against the greedy, amorphous “elites.”
You can be populist on both the left and the right. In the context of Trump/MAGA, his platform is unambiguously “national populism” that combines right-wing political/social ideologies with left-wing economic policies.
The combination of isolationism, protectionism (anti-trade; anti-globalism; anti-immigration), support for blue-collar jobs (primarily in swing states — oil, coal, natural gas; opposition to clean energy), and his thinly veiled support for white Americans over Americans of color (anti-CRT; anti-DEI; anti-affirmative action), regressive traditionalism (anti-women’s rights; anti-abortion; anti-LGBTQ+) and anti-democratic/pro-religious ideals (promotion of Christian nationalism despite not being particularly religious), etc. all form a package that is squarely right-wing populist.
In “Who Is Open to Authoritarian Governance Within Western Democracies?” Ariel Malka, Yphtach Lelkes, Bert N. Bakker and Eliyahu Spivack examined World Values Survey data from fourteen Western democracies and separate polling from Canada and the United States:
“Two key findings emerged,” they write. “The first is that a broad conservative cultural orientation — involving traditional sexual morality and gender views, religiosity, anti-immigration attitudes, and related beliefs and values — is consistently associated with openness to authoritarian governance.”
The attraction of these voters to the MAGA movement, Malka and his coauthors argue, “suggests that authoritarian governance may be perceived as an efficient way of enforcing social conformity, upholding religious traditionalism, and resisting multicultural diversity.”
The second key finding is that “Left-wing economic views are in many cases a part of the ideological package that most strongly resonates with openness to authoritarian governance”:
Specifically, the combination of right-wing cultural and left-wing economic attitudes — what has been dubbed a “protection-based” attitude package — was associated with higher levels of openness to authoritarian governance than was any other attitude package in half of the nations represented in the samples, including all five of the English-speaking democracies studied (Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and the United States).
Malka expanded on the paper in an email:
A notable segment of the U.S. population combines a culturally based conservative identity with some degree of affinity for left-leaning and protectionist economic policy. Trump’s brand of populism — combining anti-immigrant nationalism with worker-oriented economic appeals within a framework denouncing left-wing and globalist elites — is attractive to these citizens.
I asked Malka what share of the electorate simultaneously holds culturally conservative and economically liberal views. He replied that when measured by specific policy preferences, “a substantial segment of the population reveals a culturally conservative and at least somewhat economically left-leaning attitude combination,” citing one study showing that over a quarter of voters fit this combination.
Voters holding these views, Malka noted, “were a good deal more inclined to support the Republican than the Democratic Party.”
The left-right political division, in Malka’s view, “is a product of the political information environment — driven by cues from political elites — that causes politically engaged Americans to organize their attitudes in particular ways.”
Traditionally, he continued, “this has resulted in politically engaged Americans being more inclined than less engaged citizens to hold a consistently conservative (free market and culturally traditional) or a consistently liberal (redistributive and culturally progressive) package of attitudes.”
Increasingly, however, psychological attributes “have probably exerted a different kind of influence on political attitudes,” in some cases inclining them toward cultural conservatism.
Economic attitudes, according to Malka, are more complicated. Those “high in need for security and certainty tend to show a leaning toward left economic attitudes, when they are not highly exposed to political discourse that cultivates a right vs. left attitude organization. When they are highly politically engaged, however, they have tended to move their economic attitudes to the right to match their culturally based conservative identity.”
Lelkes, in turn, argued in an email that American political divides can be viewed from two different vantage points, one ideological, the other more psychological.
The classic ideological division in American politics — liberal vs. conservative — is characteristic of engaged and sophisticated elites, Lelkes wrote, while a more psychologically based division has emerged among less engaged voters:
Ideology is constructed by elites. Attitudes among American political elites have, until recently, been well defined by a unidimensional left-right divide, with cultural conservatism fitting with economic conservatism. This is less a result of some sort of natural fit between these policies than a process of negotiation among elites in the respective parties about what it means to be conservative.
Conversely, Lelkes wrote, “in the absence of attention to elites, the protection-freedom divide more closely ties into human psychology.”
In a 2017 paper, “Are Cultural and Economic Conservatism Positively Correlated?” Malka, Lelkes and Christopher Soto, a professor of psychology at Colby College, argued that the traditional left-right division in politics fails to accurately portray political conflict in the West including the United States:
Using survey data from ninety-nine nations, this study finds not only that right-left attitude organization is uncommon, but that it is more common for culturally and economically right-wing attitudes to correlate negatively with each other, an attitude structure reflecting a contrast between desires for cultural and economic protection vs. freedom.
Malka, Lelkes and Soto make the case that the division based on those seeking cultural and economic protection versus those seeking freedom and self-expression helps to explain
the rise and election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, the rise of extreme right parties in Europe and the 2016 British referendum vote to exit the European Union. In all cases, the motivation to protect national culture against foreign influence or ethnically dissimilar “others” was an important factor in support. But such cases also seem to involve some degree of motivation for economic protection.
Trump’s 2016 campaign, they write, “combined an economic posture to the left of the Republican norm (including fervent opposition to international trade agreements and promises of infrastructure spending and noninterference with Social Security and Medicare) with a theme of nationalism and appeals to racial antipathy.”
Malka and his two collaborators suggested that their analysis points to “the potential political importance of an ‘exclusive solidarity’ or ‘economic chauvinism,’ in which an economically interventionist and redistributive government is supported by cultural traditionalists who want benefits channeled exclusively to the ‘real’ members of the nation.”
Stanley Feldman, a political scientist at Stony Brook University, elaborated on this analysis in an email, writing that the psychological characteristics of people
who prioritize social conformity over individual autonomy can lead to a desire for economic policies that provide a strong social safety net.
The motivation that underlies negative reactions to social change and immigration is a desire to minimize the threat to social order. But economic insecurity is also threatening. Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, etc. can provide a sense of safety against unpredictable events that might create economic misfortune.
So it should be possible to fashion a successful political platform that combines conservative positions on social/cultural issues with government programs to provide economic security.
There are many on the left who dispute the populist commitments of the Republican nominees. In an essay last week in The Atlantic, “The Fakest Populism You Ever Saw,” David Graham challenges the working-class allegiance claimed by the Trump/Vance ticket, writing: “What is actually happening within the G.O.P. right now is a battle among different factions of the extremely wealthy over who will benefit most if Donald Trump returns to power. Workers are a distant afterthought.”
Citing the pro-business, pro-wealth 2017 Trump tax cut, Graham concludes:
Trumpian populism is an expression of political and cultural allegiance, rather than an actual program of government helping workers improve their relative standard of living. Trump and his new running mate are adept at presenting one set of elites as a scapegoat to the non-wealthy — and using that to aid a different clique of elites.
Lelkes countered, however, making the point that “it’s impossible to separate out a status threat from an economic threat.”
Jasper Van Assche, a professor of psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, contends that “Trump’s cultural stances have significant economic implications”:
Many working-class whites perceive affirmative action and D.E.I. (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies as threats to their economic opportunities and job security. Research indicates that these voters often feel that such policies disadvantage them in favor of minorities, creating a zero-sum game scenario where the gains of one group are perceived as losses for another.
For instance, studies have shown that opposition to affirmative action is often rooted in concerns about job competition and educational opportunities for one’s own children. This perspective is further exacerbated by economic anxieties and the belief that the current socio-economic system is unfairly biased against them.
More broadly, Van Assche claimed,
There is substantial evidence suggesting that Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party has resonated with voters seeking security and stability. Many of Trump’s policies and rhetoric appeal to voters who feel economically and culturally insecure. For instance, his stance on immigration and trade resonates with those who perceive globalization as a threat to their job security and economic well-being. His promises to protect Social Security and Medicare appeal to older voters who rely on these programs and fear their reduction or privatization.
Moreover, Trump’s cultural conservatism, often including elements of racial and nationalistic rhetoric, appeals to voters who feel their cultural identity is under threat. This alignment of economic and cultural policies under Trump has indeed created a more consistent and appealing platform for many working-class voters who previously felt alienated by the Republican Party’s traditional pro-business stance.
Such psychological predispositions as “a preference for order, stability, and conformity tend to correlate with support for right-wing populist leaders like Trump,” Van Assche noted.
Citing some of his own work and the work of others, Van Assche wrote:
These voters prioritize security and often view societal changes and liberal cultural policies as threats. The Republican Party under Trump has effectively tapped into these authoritarian tendencies by promoting policies that promise security and stability, both economically and culturally.
In a 2015 essay, Marc Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler, political scientists at the University of North Carolina, describe how a cluster of issues “formed and cemented the new divide.”
These issues, they write, were “1) racial and ethnic differences, 2) crime and civil liberties, 3) the Equal Rights Amendment, feminism and family structure including, more recently, gay marriage and 4) foreign policy, force and diplomacy, including the war on terror.”
Over time, according to Hetherington and Weiler’s analysis, “perceptions of these clusters of issues affixed themselves to identifiably partisan positions giving them political force and relevance.”
Hetherington and Weiler describe how in the first half of the previous decade, conservative forces successfully demanded obeisance to populist anti-immigration policies:
Because base Republicans in conjunction with their favored media personalities punish any Republican with national ambitions who floats a moderate line about immigration, Republican office holders rarely talk publicly about the virtues of a more moderate stance. As a result, the opinions of Republicans in the electorate do not moderate.
There is general agreement among the scholars studying these developments that they are problematic for Democrats.
Suhay, for example, wrote:
It is certainly the case that the two parties’ recent agendas have put many working class people in a bind: the Democratic Party’s economic agenda suits them, but the Democrats’ social agenda has been far more progressive than the modal working-class person. This is true regardless of race; however, Democrats’ emphasis on affirmative action (broadly construed) will be perceived as threatening by white working-class folks for both economic and cultural reasons.
Higher-income, college-educated Democrats are very likely to be uneasy with Van Assche’s conclusion: “The alignment of economic and cultural policies under Trump has effectively addressed the insecurities of many working-class voters, while the Democratic Party’s focus on progressive cultural issues has sometimes alienated these same voters.”
Malka elaborated on Van Assche’s point:
As for the Democratic Party, even though it pursues economic policies far to the left of the Republican Party, the increased relevance of social and cultural divisions to partisan conflict, as well as the increased presence of urban, educated and affluent voters in the Democratic Party coalition, makes it easier for the Republican Party to portray itself as a bulwark protecting traditional, hard-working Americans against a culturally condescending and self-serving elite.
Feldman argued that the protectionist ideology of the right poses a conflict for Democrats:
The Democratic Party is currently in a difficult situation trying to sell its economic policies to socially conservative voters who are threatened by immigration and social change. Could the party moderate its positions on these issues to attract socially conservative voters? Possibly.
But with Republican politicians staking out extreme positions on many of these issues it’s not clear that some moderation would help very much. And it risks losing a large part of the current Democratic coalition that is in favor of gay marriage, women’s rights and reproductive rights.
This year, each political coalition — left and right — is fraught with contradictions. In a situation in which the vote count threatens to be close, defections of any kind, especially if they’re concentrated in the wrong places, can be extraordinarily costly.
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