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YoungDemCA

(5,714 posts)
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 02:23 PM Dec 2016

A strong majority of whites without Bachelor's degrees voted for Trump. "Working class?"

Percentage of those aged 25 and over in selected occupations without Bachelors' degrees:

Top executives: 31.4%
Advertising and promotions managers: 21.6%
Marketing and sales managers: 30.6%
Administrative services managers: 59.3%
Financial managers: 37.3%
Industrial production managers: 46.2%
Transportation, storage, and distribution managers: 71%
Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers: 76.9%
Construction managers: 65.9%
Property, real estate, and community association managers: 58.1%

(You get the idea.)

Source: https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_111.htm

Total employment in management occupations, 2014: Over 9.1 million

Source: https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_102.htm

Note that these numbers/percentages are for workers whom are currently employed. There are also a lot of retired managers (numbering about a few million, I suspect) who entered the workforce at least nearly a half-century ago, in an era in which management occupations didn't need a Bachelor's degree nearly as often as they do today. And those retirees are disproportionately white men. Retired white guys in 2016 seem like a very liberal group of voters overall, if you ask me!

Furthermore, workers - of any occupation - without Bachelor's degrees are disproportionately located outside of major metropolitan areas, in the South or the "heartland", etc. - you know, those bastions of liberal Democratic political strength in 2016. And regarding income, keep in mind that salaries for all occupations - including management ones - tend to be lower outside the major metros, in rural areas, the South, Appalachia, the rural Rust Belt (and most rural areas in general), "right-to-work" states...see what I mean?

And none of this is even getting into the self-employed, or the military, or local law enforcement, or workers in anti-environmental, anti-regulation extraction industries, or uncredentialed white evangelical/fundamentalist pastors in the South or Midwest or wherever, or religiously conservative white women (particularly older white women) whom are married to men who tend to have higher incomes (or are the sole breadwinners) and higher educational attainment than their wives...

Admittedly a lot of these demographics overlap with one another, but the broader point remains: When speaking of white voters without Bachelor's degrees who voted for Trump, the relationship to class is far from straightforward.
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A strong majority of whites without Bachelor's degrees voted for Trump. "Working class?" (Original Post) YoungDemCA Dec 2016 OP
bookmarked.Thanks JHan Dec 2016 #1
No problem. YoungDemCA Dec 2016 #3
Education, not class, was the best indicator of vote preference. LonePirate Dec 2016 #2
Forgot to add: The power of unions - organized working class politics - to push wages/incomes up... YoungDemCA Dec 2016 #4
Anyone who voted for that orange stain Emilybemily Dec 2016 #5
Old people that made money in business without college are always Republican. DemocraticWing Dec 2016 #6
The Michael Moore working class meme was debunked. duffyduff Dec 2016 #7
Almost all of my managers in factories around here... Buckeye_Democrat Dec 2016 #8
Self-kick YoungDemCA Dec 2016 #9

LonePirate

(13,882 posts)
2. Education, not class, was the best indicator of vote preference.
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 02:46 PM
Dec 2016

Those with less education elected a man whom they can defeat in a game of Scrabble. No wonder they are ecstatic.

 

YoungDemCA

(5,714 posts)
4. Forgot to add: The power of unions - organized working class politics - to push wages/incomes up...
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 02:55 PM
Dec 2016

...and to make all workers both more likely to vote Democratic, and more likely to vote, period - especially working class white men in the private sector, whom have trended sharply Republican over the last few decades - cannot be overstated.

Organized labor is critical to both the ability and willingness of Democrats to staunchly support and successfully advance a political program that would make the lives of working people, and people other than the wealthy and well-connected in general, better and richer and more hopeful overall.

DemocraticWing

(1,290 posts)
6. Old people that made money in business without college are always Republican.
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 11:05 PM
Dec 2016

People keep trying to blame it on poor people, but even those of us who get educated find it hard to escape poverty. Very few poor whites voted for Trump, and the smearing of poor people as dumb hicks who vote against our own interests make people think that both parties don't care about us. So then people tune out and stay home.

I know of poor people of all races that spent election day getting high and trying not to think about politics. They don't like Trump any more than the rest of us. These are the people we have to reach, and the people liberals keep calling racists, stupid, hicks, etc.

 

duffyduff

(3,251 posts)
7. The Michael Moore working class meme was debunked.
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 11:27 PM
Dec 2016

He was full of shit, as usual. The dudes voted the way they did because of outright bigotry.

Buckeye_Democrat

(15,035 posts)
8. Almost all of my managers in factories around here...
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 11:35 PM
Dec 2016

... didn't have a bachelor's degree (unlike me working under them).

One thing they all seemed to have in common was a total lack of guilt about their higher pay for mostly sitting on their butts in air conditioned offices as they supposedly made "important decisions."

They were all corporations. I'd like to think if they were privately owned, then maybe the owner(s) would actually see how their money was being wasted on those people.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that they were overwhelmingly Republican too.

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