It's not the Economy stupid, it's the Fear

Status Anxiety Is Blowing Wind Into Trump’s Sails

The above essay cites many papers from economists that have attempted to explain the rise in right-wing populism and the fall of traditional conservative ideology.

It is hardly a secret that the white working class has struggled in recent decades — and clearly many factors play a role — but what happens to those without the skills and abilities needed to move up the education ladder to a position of prestige in an increasingly competitive world?

Petersen’s answer: They have become populism’s frontline troops.

Over the past six decades, according to Petersen, there has been a realignment of the parties in respect to their position as pro-establishment or anti-establishment: “In the 1960s and 1970s the left was associated with an anti-systemic stance but this position is now more aligned with the right wing.”

Those trapped in a downward spiral undergo a devastating experience.

Lea Hartwich, a social psychologist at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies at Osnabrueck University in Germany, wrote in an email:

Those falling behind face a serious threat to their self-worth and well-being: Not only are the societal markers of personal worth and status becoming unattainable but, according to the dominant cultural narrative of individual responsibility, this is supposedly the result of their own lack of hard work or merit.

Instead of focusing on the economic system and its elites, Hartwich continued,

Right-wing populists usually identify what they call liberal elites in culture, politics and the media as the “enemies of the people.” Combined with the rejection of marginalized groups like immigrants, this creates targets to blame for dissatisfaction with one’s personal situation or the state of society as a whole while leaving a highly unequal economic system intact. Right-wing populists’ focus on the so-called culture wars, the narrative that one’s culture is under attack from liberal elites, is very effective because culture can be an important source of identity and self-worth for people. It is also effective in organizing political conflicts along cultural rather than economic lines.​

We see this play out not just in the media, but also social media;

In a January 2021 paper — “Neoliberalism can reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social disconnection, competition, and loneliness” — Hartwich, Julia C. Becker, also of Osnabrueck, and S. Alexander Haslam of Queensland University found that “exposure to neoliberal ideology,” which they describe as the belief that “economies and societies should be organized along the principles of the free market,” results in “loneliness and, through this, decreases well-being. We found that exposure to neoliberal ideology increased loneliness and decreased well-being by reducing people’s sense of connection to others and by increasing perceptions of being in competition with others.”

---
Diana Mutz, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, described the political consequences of white status decline in her 2018 paper “Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote.”

“Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups,” Mutz wrote. “Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.”

Mutz found:

Change in financial well-being had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority-minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant-group status.

In fact, status decline and economic decline, which have fueled the increasing conservatism of the Republican Party, are closely linked both psychologically and politically.
​

Okay, so it's not just about an actual economic decline, but rather a perceived economic outlook.

In reality, “the experience of upward mobility has become less common, while the fear of downward mobility is no longer confined to the lower bound of the social strata, but pervades the whole society.”​

Status anxiety has become a driving force, Mitrea and her colleagues note: “It is not so much current economic standing, but rather anxiety concerning future socioeconomic decline and déclassement, that influences electoral behavior.”
​

But this is where it gets interesting...

The concentration of despair in the United States among low-income whites without college degrees compared with their Black and Hispanic counterparts is striking.

Carol Graham, a Brookings senior fellow, and Sergio Pinto, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, document this divide in “The Geography of Desperation in America: Labor Force Participation, Mobility Trends, Place, and Well-being,” a paper presented at a 2019 conference sponsored by the Boston Federal Reserve:

Poor blacks are by far the most optimistic group compared to poor whites: They are 0.9 points higher on the 0-10 scale (0.43 standard deviations). Poor blacks are also 14 percentage points (0.28 standard deviations) less likely to report stress the previous day, half as likely as poor whites to report stress in the previous day, while poor Hispanics fall somewhere in the middle.

Graham and Pinto measured poll respondents’ sense of purpose, sense of community and their financial and social well-being and found that “blacks and Hispanics typically score higher than whites,” noting that “these findings highlight the remarkable levels of resilience among blacks living in precarious circumstances compared to their white counterparts.”

Graham and Pinto write:

The deepest desperation is among cohorts in the white working class who previously had privileged access to jobs (and places) that guaranteed stable, middle-class lives. Rather ironically, African Americans and Hispanics — the cohorts that historically faced high levels of discrimination — retain higher levels of well-being, especially hope for the future.

The data suggest that a large segment of the white, non-college population lives day-by-day in a cauldron of dissatisfaction, a phenomenon that stands apart from the American tradition.​

So, even though it has been brought up before, this fear of Whites losing their cultural and demographic dominance seems to be the key factor in the craziness we see infesting our politics today.

So if you agree with this assessment, what are possible solutions to address this dissatisfaction? Or is that even possible?

 

Our CEO's of high tech companies are predominately Indian our doctors are predominately Indian, are we educating anyone?????

 

Yeah makes total sense. It’s all relative to one’s own self expectations. The political violence fits.m, populism makes sense, and it also explains the fear of being censored on social media. If they get censored by being blocked, they lose out on so many connections. They’re lonely and told it’s their fault they’re lonely.

 

"
It's not the Economy stupid, it's the Fear"

No. it is the economy. I have watched my hard earned savings reduced by more than ten percent because of inflation and recent down turns in the stock market.

 

Worse than 2008?

 

I do not care whether it is worse or better than 2008. It is now and it is a problem.

 

and what will happen as a result of you losing your money?

 

What happens when most people lose their money? They cut back.

 

Why is that a problem then?

 

I consider that an ignorant question.

 

Humor me then. Because the OP did the same. Why are you scared if you cut back on spending?

 

I am not scared. I can handle it.

 

Handle what? Why is it a problem if you start cutting back?

 

Republicans already understand this. Democrats apparently do not. Suspicions confirmed.

 

Name calling and reverting to an us v them mentality, and do I detect a hint of threat perception?

 

oh look everybody another Trump bash thread.

 

Tell the republicans top stop cutting education and aid to poor people.

 

I am a republican and you are a democrat. I understand that sometimes you have to cut back. Apparently you do not.

What, exactly, is your point? I have already described my situation as much as I intend to.

 

Oh yeah I’m a Democrat. Had to become one because of 2020.

And because well, what if you are feeling the anxiety that the OP is talking about when the economy declines? If that’s so the case, why do you cling to something that is hurting you? That’s called cruel optimism. And it hurts. So why not just let it go instead?

 

What the H*** are you talking about? I never said any of that. You need to work on your reading ability.

 

I did. And then I realized you didn’t say why you were upset at losing money to inflation. So I asked you why and you said it was “self evident”. Then when I asked you to explain further you refused.

 

Where did I say I was upset?

 

Then I misspoke. My mistake.

 

A 10% drop of the stock market happens on average every 1.6 years, including two under Trump, 2019 and 2020. If this gives you anxiety, your stock allocation is too high.

Of course, it is much easier to blame the Dems and Biden than to show introspection and re-evaluate your own risk tolerance for your investments.

 

Cutting back in principle is not a problem; cutting back because of government inflationary policies is a problem.