Yes, it’s mind-boggling that the most narcissistic, self-agrandizing asshole who brands himself as the definition of rich is somehow simultaneously the symbol for the downtrodden working class. I mean, ask the working class contractors that Trump regularly cheated out of construction fees.
But I also can explain some of it. Trump’s financial agenda of reducing regulations and oversight on big business is promoted under the guise of freedom from beauracratic nonsense. His economy is promoted to the working class as being on their side by preventing inflation and keeping prices lower, coupled with reducing taxes so you keep more of what you earn.
The conservatives have been selling the narrative for decades that increasing wages will just drive up prices to match. Unfortunately they caught a huge break where that simplistic story seems to be playing out. Reality is that there are several complex economic issues that drove inflation and thus the rise in prices, but that takes effort, whereas the simple narrative is easy.
So people in fact have been told for a long time that Democrat policies are bad for their pocketbook while Republican policies are good, and the current economy seems to match. Nevermind covid and war in Ukraine, it’s clearly what conservatives have said all along.
But even more important than the economic factors they don’t actually understand, what gets Trump the most support is his appeal to their social status.
You see, mainstream white christian culture feels like it has been under attack for decades, and that attack has intensified in the last decade. They see the progressive “woke” agenda as being counter to their beliefs.
Every advance in civil rights and cultural tolerance since women’s right to vote has been perceived as an attack on their own power.
What has happened is that the courts have realized that certain groups have held unmerited privileges that intrude on fair rights for all, so courts and our culture have slowly been eroding those unfair privileges. But to the White Christian majority, that is perceived as eroding their “rights”.
Recognizing religious diversity led to reducing forced religious participation through cultural privilege of Christianity over other religions or no religion. Forced rituals and symbology is religious establishment. But Christians feel the removal of public ritual and symbols detracts from their individual ability to worship. That’s a crock, but it’s their perception.
Similarly, their moral code defines certain behaviors as wrong (evil). So diverse cultural ideas about morality that sees those behaviors as choices and doesn’t agree they are evil drives a diversifying society to allow behaviours they judge as bad. Thus, they feel their morality is under attack.
So decades of reducing privilege and modifying laws to allow “evil” behaviors has led to gay marriage and finally a cultural push to accept trandgender people for who they are, and that is pushing the moral tolerance a step too far.
So Trump is riding the cultural backlash of the old privileged class to fight for their power back. Thus, he taps into the Christian aversion to LGBT+ and the fear of losing religious rights and the fear of brown people growing in number and culturally changing society. He tells these people they are right that they are under attack, that they must fight back, and he is their champion to restore the old world order with their privileges restored and the others put back in their place.
