Two decades ago, Democrats and Republicans competed over the middle class. They battled over soccer moms and suburban “swing” voters.
Since then the middle class has shrunk while the working class has grown, and vast wealth has been accumulated by a comparative few who now own a large portion of America. Some of their wealth has taken over American politics.
Enter Trump.
Counties whose voters shifted from Obama to Trump in 2016 had lost economic ground to the rest of America, to an even greater extent than solidly Republican counties. Trump is counting on the unwavering support of these mostly white working-class voters.
Meanwhile, much of the ownership class has come over to Trump. He’s counting on it to bankroll Republican politicians who are loyal to him.
Since becoming president, Trump has sought to reward both sides of this coalition — tossing boatloads of money to the ownership class and red meat to the white working class.
One boatload is the corporate and individual tax cut, of which America’s richest 1 percent will take home an estimated 82 percent by 2027, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Another boatload is coming from government itself, which Trump has filled with lobbyists who are letting large corporations do whatever they want — using public lands, polluting, defrauding consumers and investors, even employing children — in order to push profits even higher.
Trump’s red meat for the white working class is initiatives and tirades against unauthorized immigrants and foreign traders — as if they’re responsible for the working class’s lost ground — and other symbolic gestures of economic populism, along with episodic racist outbursts, and support for guns and evangelicals.
Every time Trump sends more money to the wealthy, he sends more red meat to his base.
Weeks ago, after announcing he’d seek another big tax cut before the midterm elections — “phase two,” as he termed it — he threatened China with a trade war; arranged another crackdown on unauthorized immigrants, including a carefully choreographed plan to break up families at the border and attack sanctuary cities; and vowed to go after pharmaceutical companies.
Trump’s clampdown on foreign imports and immigrants won’t raise working-class wages. It’s more likely to erode their paychecks because it will cause consumer prices to rise.
His tax cut put a few dollars in working-class pockets but is already requiring cuts in services they rely on, and will demand more.
His plan to bring down drug prices won’t make drugs any cheaper. Instead, it’s a big win for drug companies, whose prices won’t be controlled and who won’t have to negotiate with Medicare and Medicaid.
If Democrats were smart they would expose all this — and commit themselves to reversing these trends by creating a multiracial coalition of the poor, working class and what’s left of the middle.
Trump’s curious coalition endures only because he’s a clever salesman and con man. The only way it can possibly succeed at entrenching Trump is if Democrats say and do little or nothing.
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