To quote my previous article of Nov. 4, “Election 2016: Is Another Contested Election in the Works”:

“What the preceding analysis suggests is that Trump’s ability to turnout a highly disaffected white working class base in the Pennsylvania to Wisconsin geographic ‘arc’ may prove the determining factor in the election.  Whether Hillary can neutralize that turnout by counter-mobilizing suburbanites, minorities, and millennials (the least likely) in those same great lakes region ‘swing states’ is the fundamental question in this election”

This election was, as I continually have said since summer, a ‘rebellion of the working class’ against the political elite of both Democrat and Republican parties.  Trump was able to mobilize and turnout his base of non-college educated working class (combined with the traditional conservative rural, small town, small business base) more effectively than Hillary Clinton was able to turn out her base of suburbanites, minorities, college educated, and women.

More white non-college workers switched from Democrat and voted Trump in 2016 than they switched and voted for Reagan in 1980.

Clinton Latinos turned out to vote significantly less than they did for Obama in 2012. Obama’s Latino margin over Romney was 44%; Clinton’s only 36%. Women over 45 went for Trump, and millennials turned out in less percent for Clinton in 2016 than for Obama in 2012.

The states that put Trump over the top were once heavily working class and Democratic Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, with Michigan and Minnesota likely to follow as well when the final vote is tallied. These are the states most severely impacted by free trade, offshoring of jobs, and declining living standards.

Public Opinion polls totally mis-forecast the US election, as they did with the UK Brexit referendum vote last June. They predicted a 3-5% vote in favor of Clinton. The popular vote was in favor of Trump.


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Dr. Jack Rasmus, Ph.D Political Economy, teaches economics at St. Mary’s College in California. He is the author and producer of the various nonfiction and fictional workers, including the books The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Bush, Clarity Press, October 2019. Jack is the host of the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network, and a journalist writing on economic, political and labor issues for various magazines, including European Financial Review, World Financial Review, World Review of Political Economy, ‘Z‘ magazine, and others.

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