As we suffer through the continual misreading of the election returns by corporate media talking heads and Republican-wired pundits, it's worth noting that the average voter for neo-fascist narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump was doing pretty well economically. Rather, he was hurting socially, longing for a time when whites (or more specifically, white males) were in control of the economy and culture, as Jack Schwartz notes in the Daily Beast:
"Make no mistake, this election was not primarily about the economy. For Trump’s adherents, it was about nothing less than saving the soul of the nation. Their quarrel with government was not that they were doing badly but that 'the others' were making inroads, catching up, and, if unchecked, they would somehow surpass the Real Americans. The impulses of Trump’s legions were not racial, but tribal. What was “elite” about their foes was not their finances but their fluidity, their openness to change, which conservatives saw as a challenge not to their pocketbooks but a threat to their belief system." (emphasis added)There will be counter-arguments that because Rump won in white, blue-collar communities, his economic "message" (mainly deport immigrants and start trade wars) resonated with them. But within that "message" was a blatant appeal to racial resentment, misogyny, and religious bigotry. "The others" -- minorities, immigrants, women in the workplace -- were to blame for the Rust Belt's flagging economy (disregarding the jobs that had moved not across the border but to Dixie to companies in right-to-work states, among other factors). "The others'" gains needed to be rolled back, the Rump voter was told, in order for white America to "take our country back," or to "make America great again." However, the way Rethuglican policies are shaping up, for example, regarding Medicare, Medicaid, and affordable health care, his voters will have to live with the dire consequences of being conned into voting against their self-interests once again.
