What’s the matter with America? We’ve been told for years about the dumb working class MAGA voter. That they are exploited by Trump, that their interests are the reverse of a self-interested Republican cultural or economic elite. But according to the iconoclastic Tablet magazine contributor Michael Lind, we’ve got it the wrong way around. MAGA Voters are anything but stupid, he argues. That's why they don't care what dissenting podcasters like Tucker Carlson think. Instead, they're making rational choices based on their material interests, not blindly following con-celebs like Carlson, Laura Loomer or Curtis Yarvin. The real Trump coalition consists of two groups that pundits consistently misunderstand: reliable Republican voters who will support any GOP presidential nominee, and more crucially, swing voters in swing states. Rather than following the latest ideological dramas between right-wing influencers, these supposedly swing-voting “low-information voters” are making practical decisions about their lives. So actually, Lind implies, echoing other contrarian American populists like Thomas Frank, there’s nothing the matter with a United States that somebody representing the class interests of ordinary Americans couldn’t fix.
1. Right-Wing Influencers Have Zero Real Political Power Podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, and Curtis Yarvin may dominate online political discourse, but they have "next to no influence on actual policy." When they turn against Trump, there are no electoral consequences because they don't command actual voter armies—just online audiences.
2. MAGA Voters Are Making Rational Economic Calculations The "low-information" swing voters who decide elections aren't following ideological media rabbit holes. They're high school or some-college educated people making practical decisions about their material interests, not consuming political content or caring about intellectual debates among conservative influencers.
3. America Is Experiencing a Class War Between Managers and Everyone Else The real divide isn't left vs. right but between a highly credentialed "managerial elite" who control large institutions and an unlikely coalition of working-class voters and outsider entrepreneurs (like Silicon Valley founders) who resent bureaucratic control.
4. Trump Rebuilt FDR's Coalition for the Republican Party Through a complete partisan realignment, Trump assembled the same geographic and demographic base that supported Democrats from Andrew Jackson through LBJ—while today's Democratic Party represents the Northeastern establishment that Republicans used to champion.
5. The Solution Requires Rebuilding Civil Society, Not Better Politicians America's crisis stems from over-centralization and the collapse of intermediate institutions like unions, local political parties, and churches. Real change requires "democratic pluralism"—giving ordinary people power between elections through rebuilt grassroots organizations, not just voting for better candidates every few years.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
keenon.substack.com/subscribe
