Who are Trump’s supporters?

James Bradshaw

December 12, 2024 12 Reactions

At the time of writing, Democrats in the US Congress represented 65 percent of taxpayers making US$500,000 or more. They are the party of the rich now.

Ruffini describes driving through the leafy Washington DC suburbs during the 2020 election and seeing a yard sign reading: “In this house we believe / Black lives matter / Women’s rights are human rights / No human is illegal / Science is real / Love is love / Kindness is everything.”

He points out that not one of these slogans related to economic disadvantage. The sign belonged to a lifestyle liberal of the Kamala Harris variety, of whom there are now tens of millions.

Whereas the Democratic Party used to be a coalition of various groups (including union workers, African-Americans, white ethnic groups like the Irish and so forth) in which left-wing beliefs were common but not predominant, this has now changed.

What now exists in America is a broad segment of voters who hold moderately conservative views on cultural issues (without being outright social conservatives) while also being supportive of economically interventionist measures.

In the 1980s, many such voters could have been classified as “Reagan Democrats.” In subsequent decades, they veered between the parties, often being won over by skilful Democratic candidates like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who knew how to appeal to the white working class.

Gradually, whites without college degrees became a core component of the Republican coalition. What has truly revolutionised American politics is the more recent shift in which non-white groups have followed them in abandoning the Democrats.

Ruffini shows that there are many historical parallels where previously loyal Democrats shifted allegiances. For example, when Kennedy was elected in 1960, he carried more than 70 percent of white Catholic votes, but Republicans had almost half the white Catholic vote by the Reagan era and now hold a commanding lead in this demographic.

Hispanic Americans are now travelling the same road as the Irish and Italians did. This process is multi-faceted, as there is no standard or uniform Hispanic/Latino community.

Some Cuban, Colombians and Venezuelan Americans have been appalled by the rise of socialism within the Democratic Party, and have voted Republican as a result, turning a former purple state like Florida deep red.

Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans living in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas lack a shared experience of seeing their ancestral homelands ruined by leftism, and yet they too have moved towards the Republicans.

Overwhelmingly Hispanic counties in Texas which voted Democratic until recently have now gone over to the Republicans.

Why is this? As average Hispanic income levels rise, sympathy for the Republicans increases. Many are deeply turned off by Woke culture or the use of “Latinx” (an ungrammatical but gender-neutral term for Latinos which has been promoted relentlessly by white progressives).

Some also find Trump’s blunt speaking style and machismo attractive; Ruffini makes the point that Trump’s strongman persona and his approach of positioning himself as a businessman seeking to clean up politics closely mirrors how political campaigns often work in Latin America.

Social issues like abortion, on the other hand, seem not to be a major factor in Hispanics moving rightwards. The new Republican coalition is conservative in its opposition to a progressive ideology focused on perceived power structures and inequities, but in the more unchurched America of today, this new type of conservatism is not especially religious.

Many Asian Americans (often from non-Christian backgrounds) have also moved into the Republican camp due to Democratic assaults on merit-based admissions in education.

Whatever the reason for these shifts, they are not slowing down. Voters from minority backgrounds are becoming more likely to vote Republican the longer they live in America, with younger minority voters abandoning their parents’ filial loyalty to the Democratic Party.

The exception to this rule is the African American community, where the movement to the Republicans is much less noticeable, and generally involves younger men only.

Ruffini points out that African Americans still have not seen the same intergenerational progress in incomes as their Hispanic or Asian neighbours, while also pointing to research showing that the enduring strength of black social spaces (such as the African American churches) is part of what has kept blacks within the Democratic fold.

In one of the strangest situations in modern America, it now appears that a decline in church attendance by blacks could aid the Republicans; while 48 percent of black Christians consider themselves to be “strong Democrats,” only 31 percent of secular blacks do. This demonstrates the complexity of American society, where social atomisation generally benefits the left but can occasionally be a boon to the populist right.

Regardless of what happens when it comes to immigration policy, America is on its way to becoming a majority-minority country where whites are less than 50 percent of the population.

Will this doom the Republican Party? Certainly not, given the evidence about voting patterns, and given the fact that the Republican Party still remains extremely dominant in Texas, which is already majority-minority.

Ruffini’s overall case is highly compelling. What it means for American politics is that, for the moment, the Republicans are in a far better position.

The college graduation rate has not increased significantly over the last 40 years and there are simply more votes available to the Republicans.

With the structure of the Electoral College and the Senate favouring the GOP, it will be a long road back for the Democrats even if they manage to tame their overzealous Woke activist wing and start broadening their tent again.

It is worth pondering what it is about a modern university education which makes graduates so much more left wing than the population writ large, what it is that narrows the mind rather than broadening it.

Ruffini does not dwell on this question. What he does do is make a persuasive case for policymakers– particularly those of a conservative viewpoint – to focus on the desperate need for more non-college options when it comes to giving people the tools they need to prosper in the modern economy.

His policy prescriptions are commendable: more apprenticeships; the elimination of unnecessary degree requirements; and the need for more recruitment efforts aimed at people from working class backgrounds; among other proposals. Steps such as these, he writes, would boost social mobility, thus “reversing the economic calcification and social division that came about as a result of the college sorting machine in postwar America.”

Much of this can be applied to address similar problems which exist in other countries also, where a similar divide has grown up between the working-class in forgotten communities (usually native-born, and sometimes wary of large-scale immigration) and the new socio-economic elite concentrated in the larger cities and more affluent areas.

Party of the People is uniquely valuable as an explainer for how Donald Trump built a coalition to allow him to return to the White House, but it has a vastly wider relevance. It should be looked upon as one of the true “must-read” politics books of recent years.   

How would you define Trump’s appeal?   

James Bradshaw writes from Ireland on topics including history, culture, film and literature.

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