This year, many working class whites are rejecting conservative candidates in support of Donald Trump. Four years ago, during the last presidential campaign in 2012, Mitt Romney angered many Americans by writing off almost half of the electorate. He commented to a group of affluent contributors at a fundraiser in Florida:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president [Barack Obama] no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement.
The media treated this comment as though it was a derogatory remark about African Americans. However, Romney meant much more than that. He anticipated an overwhelming black vote for Obama, but he was aware that blacks constituted only 13 percent of the electorate. That is far short of 47 percent. With 72 percent of the voters, whites were by far the largest voting bloc.
Romney was more than capable of doing the math. He knew that he would encounter the opposition of a great outpouring of black, Hispanic and Asian voters on Election Day, as well as a substantial number of destitute whites who had been unable to prosper even with the benefit of the competitive advantage afforded to whites. Romney’s remarks, which were secretly recorded, reeked with disdain for all those he perceived to be losers.
Now many of those marginal whites have done something even more defiant. Under the cover of Republican loyalty, they have emerged in support of Trump. However, this political deviancy is about to topple the oligarch’s hold on the controls of the Republican Party. Now the paternalistic attitude of affluent whites toward their beleaguered brothers is in jeopardy. Even the National Review, the venerable publication of political conservatives, has published an article chastising the white working class dysfunction.
The criticisms are similar to the attacks on blacks over the years. One wonders whether working class whites have been paying attention this time to the rejection of support from their brothers. They seem to have ignored Romney’s rejection four years ago.
