Trump: A Centrist? How the Elites Plunder Working-Class Americans

In a recent episode of American Thought Leaders, host Jan Jekielek talks with Batya Ungar-Sargon, who recently traveled the country, speaking to everyday Americans about how they perceive the political, economic, and cultural climate. She compiled her findings in a book: “Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.” Her earlier book was “Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy.”

Jan Jekielek: In 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency, you noted that two-thirds of the working class voted in his favor.

Batya Ungar-Sargon: It was astonishing, because he got two thirds of white working class voters, and now he’s also dominating with Hispanic voters. In terms of polling right now, he’s looking at a third of black male voters.

He’s now the working class candidate. That’s really the reason why the Democrats have been trying to destroy him. That’s why anytime you turn on cable news, you will hear liberals casting him as a unique threat to democracy, when he is really the opposite of that.

The vast majority of people in elite positions on the Left are not just liberal, they are part of an economic elite. Their economic interests are very much in conflict with those working class voters who Trump represents. The top 20 percent is now hoarding over 50 percent of the GDP. They would much rather cast Donald Trump and his voters as evil, because then they don’t have to deal with the fact that they themselves sold out these voters years ago.

I understood there was this massive class divide in America and that story was not being told. I asked, “Who is the working class that has been abandoned by these Democratic and Leftist elites?” Then I traveled the country to find out.

Mr. Jekielek: For a lot of its history, America was highly meritocratic. Through your discussions you find that has changed, and that’s one of your central themes. There’s a class divide in America, and these elites think differently than many of us.

Ms. Ungar-Sargon: We were a meritocratic society, but that started to change somewhere in the 1970s. It really started to take hold as a new paradigm with President Bill Clinton, who signed NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] into law. That was a multi-country trade agreement, in which 5 million good paying working class jobs were shipped off to China and Mexico.

After that, President Barack Obama said those jobs weren’t coming back and defunded vocational training, which had been another great avenue to the American dream for working class Americans. Then Joe Biden sealed the deal by opening the border and welcoming 15 million illegal immigrants to compete with the working class for their jobs. The wages working class Americans were able to command dropped, because there was a larger supply of labor.

The idea of meritocracy, that everyone should have access to the American dream and equal opportunity, has become an ideology that protects the status of the over-credentialed elites. They are convinced they have more money than everybody else because of their own virtue and merit.

Mr. Jekielek: The American dream means creating a good life for your family. Despite everything, quite a number of the people you spoke to still believe this dream is possible, even though it seems a lot harder.

Ms. Ungar-Sargon: There was such a deep love of this country and a deep respect for work. This is something that’s lost on the Left. To Democrats and the Left, the way you help the working class is having more people with a higher income qualify for welfare. That’s not what working class people want. They take pride in their work and see it through a spiritual lens.

The problem is today, these jobs no longer afford them the basic hallmarks of stability, no matter how hard they work. The cost of a middle-class life relative to the wages they bring in has become a total mismatch. That is completely unacceptable, because our entire country relies on their work.

The only people guaranteed that American dream are people in the top 20 percent in the knowledge industry who do jobs most of us wouldn’t miss if they disappeared tomorrow. But if all the truckers disappeared tomorrow, we would starve.

Mr. Jekielek: I love how people react when you say, “Trump is the centrist candidate.” It’s obvious just looking at it, but somehow people are missing this.

Ms. Ungar-Sargon: They are missing it because there is a lot of energy expended trying to hide this on both sides. The Republican donor class and elites don’t want to admit that Trump is a centrist. But the Democrats also don’t want to admit it. He’s the pro-labor past of the Democratic Party coming back to haunt them.

That’s why you have this narrative about him and his followers being racist or a threat to democracy. They have to portray him as a threat, because the truth is an indictment of themselves and their own failures.

I had Trump Derangement Syndrome, so this has been a journey for me.

It took a long time to deprogram myself. It started with realizing how corrosive woke ideology was. My rabbi always loved Trump. When he first told me that, it was like a crack in the armor, because he’s an incredible person and obviously not a racist.

The sneering of the elites vis-a-vis the working class always bothered me. Then I started to see that as connected to the way they covered Trump.  His analysis of himself absorbing the blows of their contempt for the working class started to ring true for me. That’s how I ended up here.

Mr. Jekielek: “Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women,” is the product of your journey, and I highly recommend it to our viewers. Batya Ungar-Sargon, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.

Ms. Ungar-Sargon: Thank you so much, Jan. God bless you.

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This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.