They’re a focus because they’re a visible starting point and because cultural preferences often influence political choices, especially regarding social as opposed to economic issues. For example, if one believes that a reality TV business tycoon’s exploits are real and that he’s due the adulation and respect he’s accorded on the show, it’s more likely one might vote for him when he runs for President. If one thinks that bullying schoolyard insults delivered via Twitter are effective personal discourse, one might consider them to also be effective and valid political discourse. Etc.
The U.S. is economically and socially to the right of other OECD countries. The establishment left, even as it sometimes indulges in authoritarian policies itself, and the more populist left do not consider their voters to be authoritarian followers and do not appeal to them on that basis.
i’m open to scientific data supporting your contention. For myself, I’m not providing a scientific analysis here, I’m just recalling polling data over the past 35 years where, despite shifting demographics, the same ~25% of the electorate will vote for any conservative candidate offering a return to the “good old days” (which invariably involves nativist nationalism, re-asserting law and order and military action against frightening Others, putting dark-skinned people in their “rightful” place, making America a Christian nation again, anti-intellectualism, etc.). This type of voter does so again and again, even when the accompanying economic policies (which also haven’t changed much since the days of Reagan) work against their own economic self-interests.
Worse, when things have gotten so bad that enough of them finally realise they’ve been suckered, they don’t turn to the party of the “left” (because no matter how much they try to ape the right through Third Way policies) that would be supporting 'socialism"; so instead they vote for a known grifter and plutocrat who runs under the banner of the party that’s screwed them over – one who promises the same return to the “good old days” but this time pretending (mostly using cultural preferences) to be a “man of the people.” If I thought most of them were “irredeemable” before this clinches it.
By the way, i do not see this as a strictly working-class phenomenon. A great many of these voters are members of the dwindling middle class. If there’s a commonality here, it’s people who’ve been done the disservice of a crap K-12 eduction, sometimes followed by a mediocre (but always pricey) undergrad education.This aspect of the Know-Nothing 25% isn’t a recent phenomenon, either.
Are you taking the Father Flanagan approach here (“there’s no such thing as a right-wing authoritarian follower”)? If you are, we’ll have to agree to disagree. If you aren’t, what are your indicators of what makes a voter one?
