The Democratic Abandonment of Working-Class Americans

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Deaths of despair, a term coined by Dr. Ann Case in her book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, are running rampant through working-class populations. These voters, who feel abandoned by Democratic candidates, are turning to Donald Trump (as well as to drugs, alcohol, and suicide).

My sister feels Donald Trump in her toes.

Kim, my sister, is a working-class Trump voter in the throes of late-stage alcoholism. Last winter, alcoholic neuropathy caused doctors to amputate several of her toes and, this spring, a foot. Yet, she still chugs her red wine and vodka. My mother assumes she will attend her daughter's funeral before doctors have to take a leg. But this is not new. This will be my Trump-voting family's sixth "death of despair" (a fatality related to drug overdoses, alcohol-related diseases, and suicides).

Trumpism lies at the intersection of deaths of despair and the white working class. While this torment has devastated Native American and African American communities for decades, when it hit the nation's single largest voting demographic — the white working class — this death toll literally dragged the entire nation's life expectancy downward. Out of anger and despair, they also put Donald Trump into the White House. Anyone who cares about democracy should heed the "deaths of despair" reality.

Globalization has pummeled the working class. Since 1960, America's GDP has exploded by 5,000 percent. But the working class has enjoyed few of the fruits. The average American worker has barely seen their purchasing power budge since 1964. Working-class men, unbelievably, made more money in 1979 than they do today. The professional middle class has reaped the rewards. Since 1989, professional middle class wealth has grown by 83 percent. The income gap between college educated and non-college was a mere 10 percent in the 1970s. Today, it is 70 percent.

Economic redundancy has spawned a cultural unraveling. Less likely to work, marry, and be socially engaged, the working class has lost the very things that offer life both meaning and structure. To salve their pain, they, like my sister, turn to drugs, alcohol, and risky life choices. The official causes of death differ, but they all die of the same pathology: hopelessness rooted in a deindustrializing economy and social disconnection. Dr. Ann Case, who coined the term "deaths of despair" puts it aptly: "if you treat people horribly enough for long enough, bad things happen to them."

In 2015, Professor Case, in league with her husband and fellow economist, Angus Deaton "discovered" deaths of despair. Their path-breaking book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, details the epidemic. Imagine a fully booked jetliner crashing from the sky every day for a year. That's the toll. In 2022, it was 200,000. In 2023, my best friend Mike succumbed to this wave. Last month, it was a close friend's 20-something son. Sometime soon, Kim will be added to this terrible ledger.

Deaths of despair demonstrate an economic system that benefits the college-educated but has pulverized working-class Americans. Pennsylvania's deaths of despair are 50 percent higher than the national average. Tragically, the Ohio Valley, which includes Erie, leads the nation in the surge of premature deaths. Ethan Kibbe thinks Trumpism is the predictable response. The Erie News-Now reporter told me, "The middle class has taken a beating over the last 40 years. Trump says, 'I'm different.' A voter might not care for him, but they are sick of the status quo. He is their vehicle to rewrite the rules."

Trump's popularity emanates from many sources — in 2020, a bare majority of those making $100,000 per year voted for Trump, but his white, working-class base packs the electoral wallop. In 2020, Trump won 65 percent of what is the nation's single largest voting demographic. Rick Smith predicted this. The union activist and self-described "working-class hero" hosts the syndicated radio and television Rick Smith Show. Smith told me, Trump wins because he "promised to bring back union jobs that were lost 40 years ago." A working-class Democrat, Smith loathes Trump. But he understands that his political hokum appeals to a demographic crushed by an economic and social tsunami.

In a 2015 Pew survey, 89 percent of Americans termed themselves "middle class." By the numbers, only 50 percent of Americans actually qualify as middle class. But class is trickier than your bank account. It is a mix of income, occupation, and education. Today, it is the latter, education, that determines an individual's social station.

Cole Shenley disagrees with this formulation. The co-chair of the Erie-Democratic Socialists of America thinks class is defined solely by who owns the means of production. He told me, "If you are a worker, that's working class." Fair enough — Shenley isn't wrong. But our politics, if not our class, is seemingly defined by the "diploma divide." In the 2022 midterms, for example, Democrats won college-educated voters. Meanwhile Republicans took non-college whites by 34 points. The latest polls show more of the same, except Trump is now making inroads with non-college Asian, Black, and Hispanic voters.

Shenley thinks the "diploma divide" is too simple. But he also believes "Democrats have a hard time talking to the actual working class." Trump does not have that problem. Rick Smith told me that his working-class friends repeat a constant refrain, "He talks like I do. He doesn't talk above me."

Starting in the late 1960s, the educated middle class overtook the Democratic party. At the party's helm, they decided that in a post-industrial knowledge economy, manufacturing jobs, along with the people who labored in them, were redundant. Working-class voters, those who used to be called the party's base, objected. But they were ignored. Rick Smith simply rolled his eyes and said of the highly educated party bigwigs, "Democratic elites wouldn't know an honest day's labor if it bit them in the ass."

Democratic elites no longer understand the working class because they aren't allowed in their midst. In the 116th Congress, one lone Democratic member of Congress cited ever working a blue-collar or service job. Republicans also had one measly member. But the two parties diverge when it comes to their staff. A quarter of all Democratic presidential campaign staffers since 2004 attended the same 15 elite universities. The pipeline for congressional leadership, staff, and interns reveals an identical elite slant. Democrats emphasize racial and gender diversity and that is truly good. But the Republican staff and intern pipeline possesses more geographic and class diversity. Why can't Democrats emphasize race, gender, and class?

The legacy media that reports the news is mired in a similar elite milieu. As recently as the 1980s, journalism was a working-class reserve. You didn't need a college degree to be a reporter. Today, nearly half of all Wall Street Journal and New York Times employees attended the same 29 elite schools. For all its purported diversity, all but one* judge on the Supreme Court went to Harvard or Yale. Folks, this ain't diversity; it's an oligarchy.

In this regard, the Erie County Democratic Party is an outlier. Ethan Kibbe credits the party chair, Kristy Gnibus, for maintaining its working-class sensibility. To him, Gnibus keeps the party focused on area voters' primary concerns, "the economy, the economy, and the economy." Cole Shenley agreed with this sentiment. He said Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Sam Talarico epitomizes the Democrats' local leadership in that "he's a real working-class guy. We don't agree on everything, but I have real respect for him." I'm glad the local party is responsive to working-class sensibilities. It's probably why Biden won the county in 2020. But it does little for a national party that is of, by, and for the professional middle class.

Donald Trump is the least popular politician in America. He is a one-man indictment machine who accomplished exactly nothing as president. Yet, Democrats struggle to beat him. And the working class flocks to him. That's the real story.

To win working-class votes requires a return to first principles: class. We need politics that puts working-class Americans (of all races) at the center of our politics. We don't need working-class politics as imagined by the professional middle class. Like Erie, working-class people need to be at the table, running the party, running for office, and having their voices heard. History books tell me that it worked out pretty well for FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ — and America.

But, I won't hold my breath. The professional middle class has a culture war to fight on Twitter/X. The county executive ham-handedly installed a science research center at the library. Some yahoo in Arkansas removed a book from a school library. Cue the outrage. Meanwhile, I have two funerals slated for the summer. Priorities. Democrats have them and the working class is no longer one of them.

Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of American political history at Gannon University. You can follow him on Twitter/X @jhueybloodworth or reach him at bloodwor003@gannon.edu

*correction from print version: Justice Coney Barrett attended Notre Dame Law School.