During the 80s, when greed was good and deregulation and trickle down were the rules for the government and the wealthy, many of the current RV people were middle class, working in white collar, pink collar, and skilled blue collar jobs, secure in the knowledge that their union and/or employer had a great pension scheme waiting for them. Many were blindsided in the mid-2000s when that all exploded (imploded?).
Some hadn’t been paying into Social Security because they believed in their private pensions taking care of them. These people have been stunned over and over for the past decade as their retirement dreams came crashing down around them, one by one. Pension? Reduced to pennies on the dollar. Health care? Well, Obamacare made them buy expensive policies, if they hadn’t already. Utility and gasoline prices have doubled since the 90s when they made their plans, and they didn’t expect the rest of the cost of living up to the standards they set would cost so much. They’re stuck down with the poor people now, something they didn’t think could happen to them.
Thank goodness they bought that RV back when the family was still at home! Now it could be the ideal cheap way to live, AND they could see the country? But there’s still costs, and if they want to be comfortable, they’ve got to keep working. All of a sudden, they’ve become the working poor.
And about voting for Trump?
These same people would vote for anything that they thought would bring them back to the 70s and 80s, when life was good. (Of course they look through a lens of nostalgia; remembering the good times precludes seeing the bad times surrounding them.) Someone like Trump says MAGA and they love it, and it’s catchy and makes a great pound sign thingy to put in their FB posts.
Plus they hate Hillary as a symbol of the bad times of the 80s and 90s. She doesn’t trigger the good kind of nostalgia older people treasure.
