Trump's essential demographic is lower-income, less-educated, older white men.
They had been abandoned by Dem leadership & were looking for a saviour. They were gullible enough to believe a narcissistic psychopath when he said "I am your retribution".
They voted for him because he hated who they hated.
They didn't twig he hated them as well.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/11/retribution-psychoanalysts-inequality.html .
Re "Nobody abandoned them though".
Sorry to have to say that your statement runs contrary to all scholarly analysis of the issue.
Of course racism. That's a given in the analyses.
@DrALJONES
All the scholarly material I have read says that they feel, or report, or argue that the democratic party abandoned them, but that's all about their beliefs, rather than reality.
They were, and are still now, the beneficiaries of myriad advantages. It seems to my reading that this is more about the world passing them by because they stood still, than being abandoned by anyone.
Also, they lurched rightwards, not leftwards
Not sure if you read the article?
@DrALJONES
Yes, I have
It's well written, but the first act is misguided, and the next two are tedious.
As a psychoanalytical perspective, it's grand and insightful, but that's not the reason we are where we are, and it doesn't explain why traditionally unionized and left-leaning people veered hard right.
It also misses the "Costly Punishment" aspect of voting against own interests.
Re "feel, or report, or argue that the democratic party abandoned them, but that's all about their beliefs, rather than reality".
There's no doubt the Dem leadership abandoned the working class.
In the 1970s, the oligarchy adopts neoliberalism as its ideology. David Rockefeller installs Carter, who puts much of Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission into his cabinet.
Later, Clinton promises to “end welfare as we know it" & abandons the party's working-class base. Dem leadership adopts the policy preferences of the donor class. Etc etc etc
https://jacobin.com/2022/07/democratic-party-neoliberalism-dlc-clinton
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402382.2021.1916294#abstract
In 1992, Bill Clinton ran for president promising to “end welfare as we know it.” This rightward turn was part of a broader attempt by the Democrats to craft a “progressive neoliberalism” — whose “progressivism” included abandoning its working-class base.
@DrALJONES
I agree that those were a big slap in the face.
However, these voters veered to the RIGHT, and embraced the politicians who were even MORE aligned with big business.
They didn't turn out in droves to support more worker-friendly candidates in the primaries, but instead either stayed away or voted for the business-friendly corporatist dems and republicans.
Bottom line, this increasingly looks like simple racism, because those are the candidates they supported
It's no mystery. The first & several other articles explain it. Suggest look up others if you're unconvinced.
DrALJONES
Humphrey Archer