I might have the percentages and years wrong (I'm half asleep) and this isn't directly related but is food for thought, something like 3 of 5 quintiles only have higher incomes than 40 or so years ago due to increased government transfers. If the Republicans take back control of Congress and get their way in cutting social spending via threatening to shut down the government, there will be 10s of millions of Americans (not necessarily the same Americans) worse off than 40 or so years ago, despite all the increases in productivity and wealth. And somehow millions of Americans believe the lie that the Republicans are the party of the working class.
Besides the obvious cultural flashpoints (“Wokeness”, guns, abortion, etc., and the suspicion that Democrats fundamentally don’t respect most “normal” Americans who don’t have a college degree), there are understandable reasons for why plenty of people who aren’t rich or even upper middle class are attracted to Republicans—or at least, the vulgar “populist” style ascendant under Trump based on crime, immigration, trade, taxes, and generalized distrust toward the government and increasingly, “globalism.” More specifically, there are plenty of working class Americans in “old economy” jobs who see their livelihoods and security as being threatened by Democratic advocacy of environmental and other forms of regulation. And the pandemic hasn’t helped either—a lot of people don’t like wearing masks or being told what to do by the government, especially a government that is (unfairly IMO but that’s irrelevant) perceived by many to side with anti-police rioters over themselves!
Taken together, it’s easy to see how the above can persuade millions of Americans who don’t benefit from, and are indeed, actively threatened by Republican policies on the social safety net and so forth, to support the GOP. Doubly true when Democrats seem to be at once too radical on more controversial issues and too timid on broadly popular economic policies that would benefit most Americans.
