The Myth of MAGA’s Working-Class Roots
16th February 2024
Surely the white working class is to blame? It’s obvious that those who stormed the US Congress on January 6, 2021, were the very same people Hillary Clinton described as “the basket of deplorables”. They’re obviously racist, sexist and xenophobic. Why even bother checking?
Well, because it’s not quite as straightforward as that. According to the University of Chicago, 50% of the January 6 mutineers were either business owners or white-collar workers, and only 25% had no college degree.
Again and again, white working-class Americans have been slandered and cast as deranged MAGA fans in the national press. But the reality, as I reveal in my new book, is that Donald Trump’s most hardcore supporters are far wealthier and better educated than your ordinary American. The political scientists Noam Lupu and Nicholas Carnes have convincingly argued that only 30% of Trump voters in 2016 were white and working class.