What Are We to Make of Trump’s Blue-Collar Support?
1st February 2016
The L.A. Times illustrates why newspapers are dying.
Less obvious, or at least less discussed, is the parallel conundrum Trump poses for self-styled progressives. How far can they go in decrying Trump’s support among white blue-collar workers without seeming to write off what was once regarded as a core progressive constituency?
The delusion that blue-collar workers were ever a ‘core progressive constituency’ marks this as a prime Voice of the Crust moment. Who do they think voted for Nixon? and Reagan?
It could be argued that the writing-off has already occurred. There has long been a shift in left-liberal politics away from any broad identification with “the workers” — narrowly conceived as white, male and straight — in favor of specific social and environmental issues that pose no threat to existing economic structures. In that regard, Trump’s blue-collar support might be viewed as a vindication: Workers of the world, take a hike. We never liked you much anyway.
Well, that at least is honest enough. But they say it just to try to deny it, which means that they’re still delusional.
Still, there remains the vexing question of how a billionaire demagogue can win the loyalty of the very people whose class interests he opposes.
The assumption here is a cultural Marxist one, that ‘a billionaire demagogue’ has ‘class interests’ opposed to those of the working-class. It also harps on the traditional ‘progressive’ theme that if the workers only knew what their true class interests were, they’d vote for socialists. This is an article of faith, not fazed by facts on the ground.
What possible sense can we make of blue-collar workers of any age, gender or race supporting a man whose very existence rests on their exploitation and, increasingly, on their obsolescence?
Gee, that doesn’t fit the Narrative, so of course it can’t be true. And yet it is. Who can square this circle?
The usual answers — fear of terrorism, resentment of immigrants, disgust with the Washington establishment — are sound enough, but they don’t go very deep.
In other words, the facts don’t match the Narrative, so it can’t be that the Narrative is wrong — something else must be going on there. Now we’re getting into Conspiracy Theory territory.
It’s as if the impossibility of depth were a given.
As it is, in the religion of the Progressive. When facts don’t agree with Belief, the Belief is right, so there must be something wrong about the facts.
Fisking the remainder of the article is left as an exercise for the reader. It won’t be very difficult.