Creating a Myth
One can’t help feeling Ned Barnett down at the News and Observer was a little relieved when he read the Duke professor’s report. ‘Only 1 in 4 of Trump’s voters were working class people,’ Ned wrote quoting the professor. ‘The claim that working class voters elected Trump is a myth.’
Unfortunately, there was a bit of numbers juggling going on.
No one – who’s studied the numbers – would claim a majority of Donald Trump’s voters were working class people. They weren’t. But the numbers do say more working class people voted for Trump than voted for Mitt Romney and that shift – in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania – was a key to Donald Trump’s victory.
What mattered was simple: The shift.
It happens all the time: In the name of debunking an old ‘myth’ a professor – or a newspaper editor – creates a new myth.
Creating a Myth
One can’t help feeling Ned Barnett down at the News and Observer was a little relieved when he read the Duke professor’s report. ‘Only 1 in 4 of Trump’s voters were working class people,’ Ned wrote quoting the professor. ‘The claim that working class voters elected Trump is a myth.’
Unfortunately, there was a bit of numbers juggling going on.
No one – who’s studied the numbers – would claim a majority of Donald Trump’s voters were working class people. They weren’t. But the numbers do say more working class people voted for Trump than voted for Mitt Romney and that shift – in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania – was a key to Donald Trump’s victory.
What mattered was simple: The shift.
It happens all the time: In the name of debunking an old ‘myth’ a professor – or a newspaper editor – creates a new myth.