Economic Anxiety and Populism
Whether economic insecurity drives populist voting, the debate between economic and cultural explanations, and what the evidence actually shows.
The Great Debate
When populist movements win, two explanations compete. The 'economic anxiety' thesis argues that voters turn to populists because globalization, deindustrialization, and inequality have left them behind. The 'cultural backlash' thesis argues that populism is driven by identity concerns: immigration, demographic change, and the feeling that traditional values are under siege.
The evidence supports both, but in complicated ways. Trump voters in 2016 were not the poorest Americans; the median Trump primary voter had a household income of $72,000, above the national median. But many lived in communities experiencing economic decline: factory closures, rising drug overdoses, declining life expectancy. The political scientists Anne Case and Angus Deaton documented 'deaths of despair' among working-class white Americans, a phenomenon concentrated in precisely the counties that swung to Trump.