Put differently: If you look at a group of voters with the same education, their level of racial resentment strongly predicts their vote choice. But in a group of people with the same level of racial resentment, educational attainment does not allow for a strong prediction of their politics.

Among white people, the correlation between racial resentment and their voting decision is much, much stronger than between educational attainment and political alignment.

In fact, if you control for racial resentment, education polarization basically disappears.

Yes, Trump dominates among the *white* working class (if defined as people without a college degree). But even here, religion played a key role: In 2024, about 86 percent of non-college white evangelicals voted for Trump – vs. only a minority of the non-evangelical white working class.

Trump does not represent the “will of the people” – a stable majority of Americans, including about two thirds of those who call themselves independents, reject core tenets of the Trumpist agenda. It is the Republican Party that is losing touch with the mainstream of American society.

The tribune of the poor, the downtrodden? Studies clearly indicate that Trump’s most ardent supporters, especially in poorer areas, are, by local standards, quite wealthy / financially stable. Their “economic anxiety” is mostly downstream from anxieties over racial and cultural status.

That is... bleak.