TRUMP AND CLASS

I can usually tell a Trump supporter just by looking at him. This is especially true of men. Support for and opposition to Donald Trump is based largely on social class, and social class today is based almost entirely on education. I watched a discussion on television the other day in which several Trump supporters and several Trump opponents participated. I was able to spot the trump supporters right away. They were physically heavier than the opponents, had shorter hair, and redder faces. When introduced, they all had occupations as blue collar workers. The Trump opponents were thinner, better dressed, and better educated.

The election of Donald Trump revealed that the divisions in America are primarily based on social class and education. This is nothing new. I watched the Ken Burns documentary The Vietnam War on television and the split between social classes was apparent at the time of that war. While students at many universities were demonstrating against the Vietnam War, blue collar workers were demonstrating in support of the war. I remember well that when students at Pace University in New York demonstrated against the war, construction workers on a nearby project became enraged and violently attacked the students.

There has always been an antagonism between the educated classes and the (so-called) working classes. This was manifested in historical revolutions such as the French Revolution. The deep hatred the common people (“sans-culottes”) held against the nobility was not so much based on wealth, but rather, on social status, manners, spoken language, clothing (the sans-culottes did not wear the culottes worn by noblemen), and education. The nobles disdained the sans-culottes, and they manifested that disdain in every encounter. Similarly, the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution hated the noble class primarily because of status and education and not because of wealth.

How can I say that? Isn’t wealth the real cause of resentment between the classes? Well, look at the beliefs and feelings of Trump supporters. Why do so many blue collar people identify with Donald Trump? He is a very wealthy man, possibly a billionaire. If it was wealth that they hated they would certainly not support the Donald. No, it is something else. Despite the fact that he has had a good education, Trump comes across as an uneducated man. He speaks in rough sentences with a very small vocabulary and a New York accent. He is probably not very self-educated. One gets the feeling that he does not read books and is unfamiliar with history, philosophy, literature, political theory, and other academic pursuits.

Many college graduates continue to learn after graduating. Many become autodidacts (self-educated), reading books, attending classical music concerts, and going to art museums. Trump gives evidence that he never does any of these things. One remembers the high style of John and Jackie Kennedy, with philosophers, intellectuals, and classical musicians in attendance at the White House. It is very doubtful that you will see any of that under Trump.

Like Trump, there are many college graduates who do not appear to be very educated. I have known a number of them. They went to college to get degrees in business, and avoided the more liberal arts subjects. One can hardly blame them. The business world is not crying out for art historians. Many of those ill-educated graduates became Trump supporters. You go into the houses of these people and there are no book cases and no books.

On the other hand there are many people who never went to college, or never attended for very long, who are extremely well-educated. One occasionally sees them on the TV show, Jeopardy. Do you remember Frank Spangenberg? They may never have had the money to go to college, or they may not have attended for other reasons, but they have always had a deep love of learning. They may have taken advantage of free libraries to become well educated, and may have spent their sparse earnings going to concerts or operas. They are more likely to be Trump opponents.

In the last election Hillary Clinton appeared to be the consummate intellectual. She showed scorn for Donald Trump. She picked a man for Vice President with blue-collar credentials to counter-balance the ticket. The blue collar voters hated her. Those voters vastly outnumbered the educated voters supporting Hillary Clinton. If it were not for the Black, Hispanic, and other minority voters, she wouldn’t have won the popular vote.

It is hard to calculate how deep the anger of working-class Americans is for the educated class. One hopes it goes no deeper than voting for someone like Donald Trump. There are Neo-Nazis, fascists, white supremacists, and other extreme right-wingers out there, and it is not impossible to imagine one of them trying for the White House. Just remember 1930s Germany.