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.
DrALJONES
Humphrey Archer