The Champion Of The White Lower-Middle Class
Enter Trump. He is rich, but he is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have earned his wealth—not stolen it through financial trickery. That was one of Trump’s first assertions. The fact that he is a billionaire has helped, not hurt him. The Democratic fantasy of class jealousy doesn’t work where Trump is concerned. The lower-middle class admires his wealth.
Trump spoke against Mexican immigrants (and implicitly a broader grouping of Hispanics). He is not seen as having his statements vetted by marketing people. And he says things the way his supporters would say things. Trump made it clear that he heard their cultural concerns. Even his debating style—pugnacious, insulting, unapologetic and frequently preposterously wrong—is not fundamentally different from the lower-middle class style of arguing.
It is the very lack of polish that endears him to his followers (and makes him seem like a man from outer space to the upper-middle class). His occasional cursing and threats are part of the entire package. Trump maneuvered himself into the position of a man who, though he may be rich, thinks and feels like the lower-middle class. More important, he shows that they are not invisible to him—not because he speaks to them, but because he speaks like them.
The fact that Trump had never run for office is also a powerful factor in his favor. To this group, the political class is the problem, not the solution. The Republican establishment did not grasp that a career politician groomed to run for president has become anathema to this class.
That Trump was successful as a builder also helped him. The claim that he built things is essential to a class who sees construction as real business… and hedge funds as legalized fraud. The bottom half of society is hurting, and Trump is not seen as one of those who helped bring the pain, as Romney of Bain Capital was seen.
And Trump is perceived as a tough guy, who is willing to lie, insult, or threaten to get his way. From the lower-middle class point of view, nothing else will get them the solutions they need. The very idea that he might get the Mexicans to pay for a wall or tell the Chinese a thing or two might not be practical. But the thought that he would deal this way with the two nations they see as responsible for their misery is overwhelmingly seductive.
Finally, and in some ways most important, he says the things they all think but are no longer permitted to say. When he accused Fox News anchorwoman Megyn Kelly, implicitly, of being offensive because she was having her period, observers thought the world would end. For the white lower-middle class, this was a common assertion.
When Trump claimed that John McCain was not a hero just because he had been taken prisoner, he was speaking to the class who has served in the military going back to Vietnam… and never been called a hero for it. Observers thought Trump had destroyed himself. To many of these voters, McCain had carried his burden, but many knew men who had chosen to die for their buddies. Nothing taken away from McCain, they’d say, but let me tell you about a real hero. For the lower-middle class, McCain had done his duty and endured great hardship… but their definition of a hero was more demanding. They were not appalled by what Trump had said.
This is Trump’s strength. It is also his weakness.
Can Trump Win?
The Republican Party is complex. It is more than a party of the wealthy. It is also the party of lower-middle class whites who reject the current cultural tendencies that have marginalized them. Trump got the marginalized white lower-middle and middle class out over cultural issues. But it is difficult to see how this translates into the presidency. This class is not large enough to give him a victory, and his running will energize his opponents to go to the polls.
The culture wars have been won in the Democratic Party, so there are few voters to win over on that basis. Any Democratic candidate will counter Trump on the economic issue. And those in the Republican upper-middle class are no friends of the Republican lower-middle class. It is not clear how he bridges the gap.
I don’t think Trump can win the presidency. But he has revealed a serious structural weakness in the American polity. As Americans who earn below the median income are increasingly unable to live the life they could have expected a generation ago, they will join in with resentment against the upper classes. That resentment will be built around cultural issues, as well as economic ones.
The issue is not the gap between rich and poor, but the fact that the lower-middle class is becoming part of the poor, and the middle class is moving that way as well. As in Europe, the inability of the political and financial elite to see that they are presiding over a social and political volcano will produce more and more exotic alternatives.
When those people who have skills and are prepared to work can’t get a job that will allow their families to live reasonably well, this is a problem. When statistics show that vast numbers of people are entering this condition, this is a crisis. When there is a crisis, these people will turn to politicians who speak to them and give them hope. What else should they do?
Whether Donald Trump planned this brilliantly or was simply extraordinarily lucky doesn’t matter. He has found the third rail in American society. The lower-middle class doesn’t make enough to live a decent American life, and the middle class is only a little better off. Whether supporting or opposing Trump, it is essential to understand the foundations of his power and its limits. Trump makes no sense until his appeal to the lower-income white demographic is understood.
George Friedman is editor of Mauldin Economics' This Week In Geopolitics.