SALON - Trump Appeals To "White Trash" Voters

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The deep roots of “white trash” in America: “Not only are we not a post-racial society, we are certainly not a post-class society”

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/09/the_deep_roots_of_white_trash_in_america_not_only_are_we_not_a_post_racial_society_we_are_certainly_not_a_post_class_society/

>But at the same time, Trump appeals to voters who some people might call white trash voters. He embodies this kind of excess that you talk about when writing about Dolly Parton, Tammy Faye Baker. He’s tacky. He’s like a caricature of a rich person that appeals to poor people.

>Early on he was seen as cornering the white trash vote, his rabble rousing and race-baiting was inciting the revenge of the lower classes. But the problem with that is that someone like Nate Silver has argued that Trump’s voters are wealthier than either Clinton’s or Sanders’s constituencies. So we have two things going on. The visual images of the rallies and the racial tension, which I wrote about for Salon, harkens back to people like [early 20th century Mississippi Governor] James Vardaman, who engaged in this kind of race-baiting, who pitted poor whites against blacks. And he has tapped into class fears and anxieties, particularly in his emphasis on global grade. I think his wall, his famous wall which will never be built, what it really represents is not only the fear of poor immigrants from Mexico and south American coming into the country and creating job competition and lowering the wages of typical Americans, but it’s also a metaphor for keeping jobs in this country, there’s a certain isolationism that’s very appealing to voters who are attracted to Donald Trump.