OscailtTrump and the myth of the progressive but misled 'white working class' votersOnce it became clear that Trump was going to become the president of the USA, my Facebook feed became cluttered with attempts to understand how that could possibly happen. How could a white supremacist, misogynist and utterly transparent snake oil salesman accumulate so many votes? Those on the left both inside and outside the borders of the USA struggled to understand what had happened.</p>
<p class="rteright">[https://www.mixcloud.com/workerssolidarity/nope-trumps-white-working-class-should-not-be-centered-by-the-left/]</p>
<p>A common conclusion in too many of these pieces is that the left needs to reach out, and listen to the concerns of, those who voted for him as a priority. In a similar fashion to how sections of the left evaluated Brexit, they see a working class anti-establishment rebellion in the Trump vote from what they term the ‘white working class’. They believe that component was won by Trump because it has been neglected by the left - often, they will assert, because the rest of the left was distracted by what they call identity politics.</p>
<p>This is a simple explanatory story that is particularly attractive to those sections of the left that have a nostalgic yearning for an imagined past of pure class struggle, shorn of internal concerns around oppression. But the concept of masses of otherwise progressive working class voters opting for Trump on economic grounds is a myth. The attractiveness of that myth and its promotion has more to do with the hostility of that section of the left towards the influence of intersectional feminism than anything more substantive. That hostility has caused them to seek out anecdotes and exceptional regions and present them as the typical story that defines the election just as liberal Hillary Clinton campaigners have focused in on Facebook false news stories as the cause of her defeat.</p>2016-12-15T05:48:35+08:00Anarkismoanarkismoeditors@lists.riseup.nethttp://www.anarkismo.net/atomfullposts?story_id=29827http://www.anarkismo.net/graphics/feedlogo.gifA reply on Trump voters, myths and myth-makinghttp://www.anarkismo.net/article/29827#comment164282016-12-15T05:48:35+08:00Cautiously PessimisticHey, just to let you know that I've written up a reply here: https://nothingisev...Hey, just to let you know that I've written up a reply here: <a href="https://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/unpacking-the-basket-of-deplorables-a-reply-on-trump-voters-myths-and-myth-making/" title="https://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/unpacking-the-basket-of-deplorables-a-reply-on-trump-voters-myths-and-myth-making/">https://nothingiseverlost.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/unpa...king/</a> Would be interested to know what you make of it.