What MAGA’ really means when it claims to be a movement of the  'working-class'

When Donald Trump declared, during his 2016 campaign, "I love the poorly educated," that line underscored his claim to represent working-class voters. And a decade later, Trump — despite being a billionaire — and his allies continue to depict MAGA as a movement designed to make the working class more prosperous. But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in a biting late June article, argues that MAGA's appeal to "working-class identity and authenticity" is a sham.

DeVega is vehemently critical of Vice President JD Vance in his article, attacking the "Hillbilly Elegy" author and former U.S. senator as an "opportunist" who has long since turned his back on the working class he claims to represent.

"The years since the publication of 'Hillbilly Elegy' demonstrated that Vance is, at his heart, an opportunist and a chameleon," DeVega writes in Salon. "Before entering politics, he publicly and privately condemned Trump, describing him as 'America's Hitler' and an 'idiot.' Venture capitalist and conservative activist Peter Thiel served as his mentor, funding his career in finance and underwriting Vance's own business. When Vance ran for the Senate in 2022, Thiel was his largest donor, contributing approximately $15 million to his campaign."

DeVega adds, "Thiel's intervention on behalf of Vance serves as a reminder that the vice president did not pull himself up alone by his bootstraps; he had a lot of help and luck along the way."

The Salon journalist notes that when Vance "returns to his working-class roots" in interviews, his appeal to "working-class authenticity" is "largely performative" — which, according to Vega, is typical of the MAGA movement.

"In American politics — especially in the post-Civil Rights Movement era — the term 'working class,' or 'blue collar,' is presented as being race- and gender-neutral when it is usually a stand-in for white conservative and right-leaning men. In reality, there are tens of millions of working-class Black and brown people. Approximately 46 percent of the U.S. working class are women. As a group, working-class Americans support progressive policies. Besides being pro-union, they are in favor of expanding the social safety net, investing in infrastructure, and increasing taxes on the rich and corporations to create a fairer economy and more opportunity for all Americans."

DeVega continues, "When Vance or Trump talk about 'working-class' or 'hard-working Americans,' they are making thinly coded appeals to aggrieved white men and women who feel they have 'lost their country' to Black and brown people, immigrants and others who have 'cut ahead in line.' To that point, research has repeatedly shown that it is not economic anxiety but racism, nativism and white racial resentment that drives support for Trumpism, MAGA and today's Republican Party."

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