As Democrats debate the party’s future, most explanations of the 2024 election have been emphasizing the failures of the Democratic Party itself, as opposed to what Donald Trump offered. One example of this is the argument that Kamala Harris was an ineffective communicator, implying that many more voters would have chosen her over Trump had she communicated more effectively. A problem with this approach is that it does not engage meaningfully with what voters found specifically appealing about Trump.
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom paints Trump supporters as largely uninformed and voting emotionally – not logically. As comedian Jimmy Kimmel put it, “It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too. [They] just don’t realize it yet.” Based on CNN’s exit polls, one in two voters earning less than $50,000 annually voted for Trump, even though his support for programs designed to help them was far less clear than the proposals Harris articulated.
But what if the conventional wisdom underestimates the rationality of Trump voters? Exit polls show nearly two-thirds (62%) of White voters in this income range voted for Trump, compared to only 5% of Black voters earning less than $50,000/year. (Among all voters, 57% of White voters and 13% of Black voters chose Trump).
How the Jim Crow South helps us understand Trump today
To understand the logic of Trump voters – and how he courts White voters – we can turn to W.E.B. Du Bois’ observations of the Jim Crow South. Building on Du Bois’ work, historian David Roediger coined the term “Wages of Whiteness,” which offers a lens that may clarify Trump’s project. The term refers to what Du Bois calls the “public and psychological wage” a White person earns from White privilege. These wages are deeply rooted in U.S. history.
We can trace the historical roots of these privileges and the Wages of Whiteness back to events like Bacon’s Rebellion in colonial Virginia in 1676. After quelling the rebellion of poor Europeans and Africans, wealthy colonists granted lower-class Europeans just enough privilege to secure their loyalty. The elite, especially plantation owners, socialized with these voters in taverns, invited them to their homes, and argued they shared interests and an identity. Meanwhile, Virginia’s elites relegated workers of African descent and their descendants to slavery.
Roughly a century later, a British diplomat touring Virginia observed how wealthy landowners mingled with ordinary White people “whom they court by dressing and looking like them as much as they can.” (Fast forward to today, and we see Trump echo this practice with his suit/cap image.) In 1848, Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina asserted that “the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black” – describing both the entrenched social structure of the time and his vision for how it should remain.
This strategy proved resilient even after the Civil War. When former Confederate elites reclaimed power in the 1870s, they sought to secure the allegiance of lower-class White Southerners. They wanted to prevent the coalition-building between White and Black Southerners that occurred during Reconstruction. Plus, they recognized some decline in support for a society controlled by wealthy Southerners – something that had become clear with the rising number of desertions by Confederate conscripts toward the end of the Civil War.
Southern elites thus worked hard to construct a mythology that venerated Confederate leaders, celebrated the South’s wartime efforts, and idealized the antebellum period. This mythology, known as The Lost Cause, fueled an era of monument building across the South. It also prompted a lynching epidemic, bolstering White identity by bringing White people, wealthy and poor alike, to participate together in a kind of “spectacle” of violence against Black Southerners. This race-based solidarity stifled the formation of class-based coalitions that might have threatened the dominance of wealthy White Southerners.
Meanwhile, the elite offered an alternative narrative for the economic difficulties among White Southerners, blaming the Northern-backed Reconstruction of the South. This narrative also blamed Northerners for creating the “race problem.”
Many poor White Southerners must have understood that the elite were exploiting them, but that they could not compel wealthy Southerners to change without incurring major costs. Aligning with White supremacy at least improved their circumstances through social privilege and impunity to exploit Black Southerners. These benefits were Du Bois’ Wages of Whiteness.
The wages of citizenship
After the Jim Crow era ended, Southern elites adapted. In 1981, Ronald Reagan’s advisor Lee Atwater explained the strategy to win supporters of that fallen racial order: “By 1968 you can’t say ‘[N-word]’ – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights… and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites….” But by the early 21st century, America’s demographic shifts necessitated a re-adaptation of this strategy.
Enter Donald Trump, who has racialized immigrants in ways that allow him to include voters who identify as people of color in his narrative of America First. By claiming immigrants are “taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs,” Trump has been hardening a cleavage based on legal status. This may distract from tax cuts and deregulation – policies that enrich corporate elites at the cost of the working class. Trump portrays corporate elites as the heroes of the American Dream – echoing the Jim Crow-era veneration of former Confederate leaders, whose exploitation of lower-class Southerners persisted long after the war.
Exploiting old and new divisions in Trump’s America
A century later, Trump offers those with legal status a psychological and social “wage.” By combining the notion of the “superiority” of U.S. citizens with the idea that migrants reduce job opportunities and burden public resources, Trump turns migrants into scapegoats for economic hardship. This false narrative reinforces American corporate power by distracting voter attention from corporate labor practices, for instance. And this narrative also facilitates the further exploitation of undocumented migrants who remain in the U.S., and may now face the threat of deportation.
Trump continues to court White supremacists, vowing to exonerate those punished under the law for the Jan. 6, 2001 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But just as in the earlier periods in U.S. history, when the White working class aligned with racial privilege – despite their exploitation – Black and Latine voters today may also see their own exploitation but perceive a comparative advantage relative to undocumented immigrants. By pitting citizens against immigrants, Trump appears to have threaded a needle: maintaining White support while expanding his appeal among Black and Latine voters.
In short, Trump may have taken a strategy reminiscent of Jim Crow politics, by building on but modifying earlier racial distinctions, and redeploying these divisions on a national scale.
Editors’ note: This article uses APA Journal Reporting Guidelines on “White” and “Latine.”
Desh Girod is an associate professor in the government department at Georgetown University and an affiliate with Georgetown’s Conflict Resolution Program and the Center for Social Justice. His current book project, “Jim Crow Foreign Policy,” examines how domestic race politics shaped the rise of the United States as a Great Power.
