Olsen:
Thanks to Donald Trump, American elites are finally paying attention to blue-collar, white America. They do not like what they see.
Racist.
Bigoted. Irrational. Angry. How many times have you read or heard one or more
of these words used to describe Trump’s followers? Whether they are the
academic, media, and entertainment elites of the Left or the political and
business elites of the Right, America’s self-appointed best and brightest
uniformly view the passions unleashed by Trump as the modern-day equivalent of
a medieval peasants’ revolt. And, like their medieval forebears, they mean to
crush it.
That
effort is both a fool’s errand for the country and a poisoned chalice for
conservatives and Republicans. It is foolish because the reasons the peasants
are revolting will not fade easily. Ignoring and ridiculing their concerns, the
way European elites have done with their own electorates for most of the last
two decades, will simply intensify the masses’ rage and ensure that their
political spokesmen become more intransigent and radical. If you want an
American version of Marine Le Pen tomorrow, ignore the legitimate concerns of
blue-collar Americans today.
And it
is a poisoned chalice for the Right because such a strategy requires a
permanent informal coalition with the Left. Keeping blue-collar white Americans
out of political power will result in exactly what Washington elites have
wanted for years: a series of grand bargains that keep the status quo largely
intact and the Democratic party in power.
Conservative
Republicans have fought for 60 years to build a coalition that not only will
tell history to stop, but will also channel it in a new direction, a direction
in which freedom flourishes and America and her values reign over a peaceful
and prosperous globe. The constituency that is rallying to Trump is not fully
conservative, but it shares more values with conservatives than do any of the
other constituencies that could possibly be enticed to join our cause. It is
thus imperative that conservatives understand what these fellow citizens want
and find ways to make common cause with them where we can.
Blue-collar
whites traditionally have been animated by the sense that government ought to
be on the side of the little guy. They formed the backbone of the Democratic
party during its New Deal/Great Society heyday, enthusiastically supporting a
party that aided labor unions, created Social Security and Medicare, and
expanded educational opportunities. While they no longer think of themselves as
Democrats, they have not abandoned either these sentiments or the promises that
these programs originally offered. Their openness to the Right is predicated on
the Right’s guaranteeing that these advances will not be undone.
Patriotism
has also been a blue-collar-white staple for decades. Blue-collar whites may
not be particularly hawkish (their sons and daughters are often our “boots on
the ground”), but they are not isolationist or pacifist, either. They are proud
of America, favor effective measures to protect our security, and do not like
to see America humiliated by her enemies.
Blue-collar
whites remain more friendly to traditional religion than other, more educated
groups but are not as motivated by social issues as they were 30 to 40 years
ago. Whites without a college degree who remain motivated by these issues are
already staunch Republicans. Those who remain independent tend to be open to
candidates’ espousing traditional social values but do not prioritize those
values highly when choosing whom to vote for.
Today
these voters are most animated by a sense that they are being left behind by a
changing America. They have good reason to think so: Americans with less than a
college education have seen their incomes stagnate or decline for more than 15
years. Inflation-adjusted median incomes peaked for these men and women in
1999, during the Clinton administration (expect to hear a lot about that if
Hillary is the Democratic nominee). Neither the Bush nor the Obama years have
been good for them.
This
has not made them want to overhaul America’s private sector. Polls show that
blue-collar whites still believe in free enterprise and distrust government
solutions. They do not believe, however, that the current economy is serving
them well.
These
developments have led them to be among the most pessimistic of all American
voter groups. Pew Research broke the American electorate into eight groups in
2014, and the one that contains blue-collar white swing voters — “Hard-Pressed
Skeptics” — was solidly down on their own future and on America’s. Sixty-one
percent said America’s best years are behind us, and 65 percent said that hard
work and determination are no guarantee of success.
These
voters also do not trust either Wall Street or the American economy more
generally to provide for their future. Seventy-four percent say that our
economy unfairly favors powerful interests, and 54 percent say Wall Street
hurts America’s economy. In each case, only “Solid Liberals” expressed more
negative, anti-business views.
Trump’s
opposition to immigration and suspicion of free trade have been his calling
cards so far, so it should be no surprise to find that blue-collar white
independent voters share his views. The Pew study found that 79 percent think
immigrants are a burden on the country and 44 percent think free-trade
agreements are bad for America. These voters have been hit hard by competition
from foreigners, whether those foreigners live abroad (free trade) or at home
(immigrants), and they want protection — now.
Blue-collar
whites are also more open to government action than many movement
conservatives. For example, 87 percent of “Steadfast Conservatives,” Pew’s term
for movement conservatives, think government is doing too much that should be
left to individuals and businesses; only 44 percent of Hard-Pressed Skeptics
agree. Sixty percent of Hard-Pressed Skeptics think government aid to the poor
does more good than harm; only 10 percent of Steadfast Conservatives agree.
Seventy-nine percent of Hard-Pressed Skeptics say that cuts to Social Security
benefits should be off the table. Clearly a campaign based on cutting food
stamps and reforming entitlements will not resonate with blue-collar whites.
One
might wonder whether meeting these voters halfway is worth it. But there is no
alternative: All other voter groups who might be open to voting for a
Republican nominee are farther to the left and oppose conservative consensus on
key matters of principle.
Hispanics,
for example, strongly favor government intervention in the economy. The Public
Religion Research Institute has found that Hispanics favor raising taxes and
increasing spending on education and infrastructure by a nearly two-to-one
margin over cutting taxes and letting business grow. Upper-income young whites,
whom Pew calls the “Next Generation Left,” favor free trade and low taxes but
are highly secular and green, opposing the traditional definition of marriage
and favoring greenhouse-gas-emission controls. These voters will vote for
Republicans, but only for moderates such as former New York governor George
Pataki or former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Building a working
coalition by focusing on either of these groups, as many in the GOP
establishment favor, would trigger a civil war within conservatism.
Winning
the support of blue-collar voters means gaining their trust, and that means
first affirming the core elements of their worldview. They have to believe that
the GOP nominee understands that they have been the losers in the transition to
a modern economy. They have to believe that the nominee will be on their side
when the chips are down and that he is willing to take on the powerful. A
nominee who appears ignorant of or callous toward these views, such as Mitt
Romney, will be rejected as long as the Democratic nominee seems marginally
acceptable.
This
means that they will demand, at a minimum, some form of immigration
restriction. America undoubtedly needs some immigrants to fuel its economic
growth, especially since the native-born work force is aging. But “open
borders” as an end goal of immigration reform will simply not fly with these
voters.
The
nominee should be guided by the principle “All the immigrants we need, but only
the immigrants we need.” That means he or she should favor getting control of
our borders and enforcing requirements to give American citizens priority for
job openings. It may also mean reforms that help citizens move in search of
work. Low-skilled, native-born Americans tend to stay in place when jobs leave
their communities, a choice partially subsidized by a host of well-meaning
government programs that allow them to get by without moving. Reforming these
programs to encourage Americans to move where the jobs are will lower the
demand for immigration and give blue-collar Americans of all races the help
they need to get back on the ladder to self-sufficiency.
Addressing
the downside of free trade is also key to winning these voters. Restricting
trade itself is not a good idea, since trade creates jobs that these voters
need. But free-trade competition places downward pressure on the wages and
compensation of low-skilled workers. A GOP nominee who wants to attract these
voters must embrace an economic policy that creates high-paying jobs that
people with high-school educations can do.
This
will require more than simply lowering corporate tax rates to encourage
business investment, although it certainly does require that. It will require
more than making it easier to produce oil, natural gas, and other natural
resources that create good jobs for people with moderate levels of formal
education. Ideally, it will involve enacting some policies that favor or
subsidize high-paying jobs in America.
That
could take many forms, but Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s tax reforms give
some idea of what one can do. He has not cut corporate tax rates in Wisconsin.
Instead, he has enacted two tax credits that reward businesses for jobs they
create and for in-state business activity. Federal corporate tax credits for
companies that create jobs in America, and perhaps for companies that increase
employee compensation beyond the rate of inflation, would show blue-collar
Americans that the government is working for them.
Blue-collar
voters also need to know that “playing by the rules” will be rewarded, not
punished. Some of the major objections they have to immigration and trade arise
from the fact that our government looks the other way at cheating when it comes
to foreigners (e.g., Chinese currency manipulation and businesses’ hiring
illegal immigrants) but rigorously enforces the rules when it comes to
Americans. To blue-collar whites, “working hard and playing by the rules” is a
core value; a government that doesn’t share it is one that earns scorn and
merits disgust. A GOP nominee who wants to win these voters over will have to
show he is serious about creating economic rules that don’t disfavor American
workers and will be enforced.
It is
also possible to find common ground with these voters on tax policy. They will
support tax cuts for everyone, even the “top 1 percent,” but they will not
support tax cuts that seem unduly to favor the already well-to-do. This is a
problem for most Republican candidates, because they have already endorsed tax
policies that embrace the supply-side view that the best way to grow the
economy is to cut taxes for the highest earners.
A
politically ideal tax policy would look less like what is on offer now and more
like what has worked for Governors Walker and Kasich (Ohio). Both Walker and
Kasich have cut tax rates for all, but their cuts are much smaller than those
that the other major candidates have proposed. Each of their state tax-cut
plans also includes elements that backload the cuts in favor of working-class
households — in Kasich’s case, an increase in the earned-income tax credit, and
larger rate cuts for lower income brackets in Walker’s. A politically ideal tax
plan would adopt similar approaches.
A bold
nominee might even want to propose exempting the first $20,000 in wages from
the Medicaid payroll tax, which would lower the cost of hiring a new employee
and nearly eliminate this tax for most households earning less than the median
income. This exemption would apply to all workers, so higher-income taxpayers
would see their taxes cut too; but it would apply equally to all rather than
give a greater benefit to people who are already doing well. It would be a
federal version of the across-the-board property-tax cuts that Scott Walker has
enacted with great success, cuts that benefit all and give equal treatment to
people in all income brackets.
The
same basic approach extends to a host of other issues. Higher education, for
example, costs so much because academic elites keep out competitors and prop up
tenured faculty who teach and publish very little. Deregulation and tying
federal student aid to keeping tuition increases at or below inflation will
give blue-collar students the education they want at a price they can afford.
Obamacare
should be repealed and replaced, but with an eye more on how its replacement
will work in practice than on how it looks in theory. That means designing a
plan that subsidizes private-sector coverage and deregulates health-insurance
and health-care markets to incentivize the private sector to deliver care more
efficiently.
Conservatives
can achieve all this while advancing freedom and opportunity. Ronald Reagan
built his career on that understanding. Writing in these pages in December
1964, he asserted that conservatives “represent the forgotten American — that
simple soul who goes to work, bucks for a raise, takes out insurance, pays for
his kids’ schooling, contributes to his church and charity and knows there just
‘ain’t no such thing as free lunch.’” Reagan spent the rest of his career
representing that soul, and in so doing created the modern conservative
movement and changed the world. We who stand on his shoulders would do well to
readopt the sentiments that allowed him to attract the blue-collar Reagan
Democrats and remake his coalition in our times.
