A study was released this year about the language used by political candidates and placing it on a grade level. While most politicians utilized language that was around 6th to 8th grade level and having speeches at mainly an 8th grade level, Donald Trump was just below that and his speeches climbed to a 7th grade level. Who knows if Trump is trying to speak at a lower than average grade level, but it is appealing to his working class voters.

The Washington Post stated that “more than 40 percent of Americans have only basic literacy skills,” and Trump is directly speaking to these citizens on a level they can understand and relate to. Many statistics have shown that the working class is usually less educated than other sects of the socioeconomic strata, meaning that they can easily interpret Trump’s language. Clinton and Sanders, during the primary, used higher vocabulary in their speeches, relative to Trump, probably alienating the working class in the process. Trump’s rhetoric is not just appealing to the working class, but is being understood by them and generating their support. Trump’s tactics, intentionally or not, are smart, seeing as most voters prefer a simpler vernacular from their politicians.

While Trump’s language is usually easily understood, there are sometimes when his rhetoric becomes “incomprehensible.” However, because it focuses on feelings over ideas, he is still rallying up the working class. During a speech in Nevada, Trump said that “I love the poorly educated” and his rhetoric of “basic and repetitive” phrases support this claim. Donald Trump has gained the support of the working class during most of this campaign cycle. It has been thought that it is because his arguments, like talking about the wall or bringing jobs back, but it just might also be that the working class both understands what his language and then likes his points.

The guy that we all know to brag about his wealth has been under the fire for his rhetoric with working class voters.  Trump’s rhetoric so far in the election with working class has been racially charged and highly nativistic. Trump has been targeting what he believes to be the working class as only white males, when the working class consists of far more than that. Today, the dynamics of our working class includes not only whites but important voters of the working class also include African Americans and immigrants. Trump’s entire campaign represents the economic despair and racial anxiety that are felt by white working class men. His rhetoric has been completely against minorities arguing that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists and suggesting that there should be a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.

Because Trump has narrowed his view on who the working class actually is, this in a way could help the working class votes for the Democratic Party. During Obama’s speech during a rally in Philadelphia, while Clinton was recovering from pneumonia, he questions working class supporters on letting someone like Donald Trump become the next “champion”of our county. “This is a guy who spent 70 years on this earth showing no concern for working people. He spent most of his life trying to stay far away from working people. He wasn’t going to let you on his golf course,” Obama said.  According to Obama, he describes Trump as a fake-working class hero. It will be interesting to see in the future how or if Trump will change his rhetoric to gain more of the working class vote.

 

Image: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/12-trump-cartoons-smile

 

Throughout his campaign, Trump has attempted to portray himself as an anti-establishment outsider in order to appeal to ordinary, working class Americans. Some of this is due to his focus on economic policies like trade and protectionism, but much of it is also centered around “America first” anti-immigration rhetoric. Trump’s claim that Mexico “is not sending their best…they’re criminals, they’re rapists” is clearly an attempt to appeal to working class people who have anxiety about illegal immigrants. Much of this is due a belief among some Americans that jobs are being lost to illegal immigrants – much of the concern about illegal immigrants stems from economic anxiety, not racism. Though his comment might still be considered bigoted, the concerns of his supporters aren’t necessarily bigoted as well. The anti-immigration and America-first rhetoric seems to be targeting poor and middle class whites. These issues are the cornerstone of his campaign, and he is polling extremely well among these groups.

Another area in which Trump’s rhetoric targets the working class is through criticism of NAFTA, where he insists that we are losing jobs not just to Mexican illegal immigrants, but Mexico itself. In the debate that took place the night of the writing of this blog, he brought up how NAFTA “ruined the inner cities.” He tied trade deals like NAFTA to the economic plight of poor and middle class African-Americans. He is doing very poorly with black voters – at one point, he was receiving 0% of the black vote in some states. His criticism of NAFTA as harming inner cities (which he ties to Hillary Clinton because her husband Bill passed it) is an attempt to appeal to poor and middle-class blacks.

The anti-NAFTA and anti-immigration rhetoric can be seen as targeting different races on different issues, but what’s clear is that Trump is using both of these rhetorical strategies to target working class voters, blacks and whites alike.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-gets-0-support-black-voters-ohio-pennsylvania-nbc-n609026

Donald Trump has had great influence to the working-class people. His biggest audience has been the rural Caucasian voters. He uses situational rhetoric to his advantage by claiming time and time again that he sympathizes with them by stating that they have been treated unjustly in these economic times. Working-class Caucasians, especially males have played a key role in Trump’s survival in this election.

What people don’t realize is that Trump has mostly been appealing to Caucasian males who earn $50,000 per year or less. The reason for this is believed to be Trump’s “right-wing version of economic populism” (Stoehr Link). Another popular reason of these working-class people are voting for Trump is his racist platform he bases his plans on. He appeals to them by having strong opinions of topics asked about. Majority of Trump voters are in jobs that are labor-heavy which means the Caucasian working-class supports him so much because of his promotion of domestic production. Specific examples of this reflect his negative rhetoric towards NAFTA, TPP, and other aspects of globalization. He also appeals to men more than women because when dealing with the working-class, women are more likely than men the have minimum wage jobs. Trump had originally stated that he believes minimum wage is too high but then flip-flopped on this making it confusing of whether of not they should vote for him.

In the election this November, working-class Caucasian males will make up the majority of Trump’s votes. Unfortunately, what should happen is the realization that Trump’s flip-flop of ideas would show that he does not have a clear plan for the working class. One of Trump’s strengths is that he uses colloquial language that appeals to a lot more people than educational rhetoric which can be misconstrued as complicated and confusing. Trump’s rhetoric appeals to the disaffected workers in manufacturing-driven states who believe will be heard if Trump is elected.

 

Trumps rhetoric is proven here

 

Donald Trump has several trends that have remained fairly constant throughout his campaigning process. The first, is his ongoing support base of white middle class voters. The second being his strong views regarding immigration and trade deals. The relationship between the this demographic and the repeated call to “build the wall” can be linked in the root of the insecurities and anxiety of the white working class  and Trump’s strategic approach to capitalize on this white fear .

In this breakdown published by CNN, Trump supporters are said to be more than twice as likely than non-Trump supporters to believe that their lives have been negatively impacted by immigrants working in the US. The study also shows that 62% of Trump supporters think that latin american immigrants take jobs from americans and in addition 60% state that they think latin american immigrants add to the crime problem. This is demonstrating a high level of anxiety about the future of america with regarding immigration. If immigration trends continue as is, it is projected that the white working class will become a minority majority and that people of color will be the majority by 2030 which given that the white working class demographic fears will cause their job loss and crime seems quite threatening.

Trump takes full advantage of this fear of the immigrant population in America by continuously stating in such harsh ways that he will “build a wall” to help the white working class visualize how he would stop this trend in the most tangible way possible. By doing this, he is not using a logical approach to attract these voters , but rather he is using an emotional one which as discussed in class is proven to be very effective in generating support. In this campaign, Trump is already utilizing a wall, the huge white wall of american fear and insecurities.

CNN polls have showed about 60% of white working class voters are for Trump, but why? Donald Trump has utilized his slogan “Make America Great Again” to infiltrate as many different voter bases as possible, but it has been like a sermon to the working class, making them have faith and putting them to work. When saying “Make America Great Again” he discusses how that will be done through trade policies and bringing jobs back…everything the working class wants to hear.

During the first presidential debate, Trump turned a conversation about how we wants to create tax cuts for the wealthy into how that will bring jobs back to the working class. Tax cuts for the wealthy would usually not be a hot topic with the working class, but by discussing how it will bring jobs back from overseas, he is pleasing that class and making Secretary Clinton look like a worse choice: “And if you really look, it’s not a tax — it’s really not a great thing for the wealthy…It’s a great thing for companies to expand.” 

The working class has faith in Trump to “Make America Great Again” because “he’ll bring the jobs back” and such people as “mill hunkies hear a promise to restore their pride and their way of life”. When a debate went down in Youngstown, Ohio, an advocate of Trump clearly stated his support: “You think America is great? Come look for a job in Youngstown” . Trump’s slogan is speaking to each individual in a unique fashion, but to the working class as a group, it is meaning jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Donald Trump believes that he is appealing to working class voters, but his appeal to them is more along the lines of a populist movement. He is pitching them against the establishment (the rich, educated people) using a divide and conquer strategy he is using to make them feel important like he is the only one fighting for them. He uses the rhetorical strategy of basing his campaign on fear trying to convince the working class that our current economy has no room for them and that this is heavily due to the fact that diversity, immigration, and globalization are the cause for it all. Although his words may have been appealing and holding weight with some voters, for many of the working class this tactic has not been working.

White Working Class in the Rust Belt

The primaries held in Mid-western states, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan, all of which are very important swing states show that Donald Trump is not doing very well in that region as far as holding onto the working class vote. “A 2016 race between Clinton and Trump could devolve principally into a pitched battle for the Rust Belt,” the Washington Post’s Dan Balz predicted in March. According to the chart, Trump’s support only constitutes 26- 30 % of working class voters in these three Rust Belt States and this demonstrates that Trump’s candidacy could also be considered the Democrats’ first major opportunity to gain more support among the white working class voters.

 

In order to appeal to the working class, Donald Trump has attempted to portray himself as an anti-establishment outsider and a champion of the people. One way in which he does this is by criticizing lobbyists and the donor class, especially in the primaries where he would accuse the other candidates of being “bought off.” He insisted that his self-funding (disregarding the validity of this claim) of his campaign made him a servant only to his voters, and not to any special interests. An interesting use of language on this issue is his criticism of Clinton’s slogan “I’m with Her,” contrasting it by saying, “she says ‘I’m with Her,’ I say ‘I’m with you.’”

Another major issue with which Donald Trump addresses the working class is “free trade.” He frequently speaks out in favor of protectionism and against outsourcing, and criticizes free trade deals like NAFTA. In the first debate, he criticized Bill Clinton for NAFTA, saying that this caused a massive loss in American manufacturing jobs. One rhetorical device on this issue stood out – he seemed to approach the issue implying that because Bill Clinton is Hillary’s husband, she is somehow responsible for NAFTA, rather than quoting her advocating NAFTA on her own. He criticized her for calling the Trans-Pacific Partnership the “gold standard in free trade deals” and directly linked trade with outsourcing. He integrated a direct mention of Ohio and New England rather seamlessly, discussing protecting working class jobs and criticizing outsourcing, saying that Clinton is content with outsourcing while he is not. The mention of Ohio cleverly targets a swing state on a controversial issue.

As many politicians do, Trump has attempted to make the idea of “change” a key component of his campaign rhetoric. It is a simple and highly effective strategy. He criticized Clinton in the debates for being a part of the political system for “thirty years” while still not changing or accomplishing anything. This fits with his narrative as an outsider, which is an attempt to align himself with the working class.

Source videos of Trump’s quotes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2nULN8sCDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Am6ovK7s