A striking feature of US politics nowadays is the flight of “workers” – meaning non-professionals, usually blue-collar or clerical – from the Democratic Party. For many decades after the New Deal, the Democrats were the party that championed unions, workplace safety, and the minimum wage, and the Republicans were the champions of business.

Yet according to Gallup, the proportion of Republicans who identify as “working class” or “lower class” grew from 27% in 2002 to 46% today, while the share of working-class Democrats fell slightly (from 37% to 35%). Moreover, whereas 46% of white voters in union households supported the Democrats in 1968, that proportion had fallen to around 33% in 2020, a near-tie with Republicans. Since the 1990s, people in poorer, working-class locales have increasingly preferred Republicans to Democrats.

The usual explanation for this change is the rise of “neoliberalism”: the pro-market ideology that prevailed in policy circles from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Neoliberals promoted deregulation and globalization through support for free trade, unrestricted capital flows, and maximal migration. Though Republicans pushed neoliberal policies harder than Democrats ever did, the Democrats eventually embraced them. Once the parties no longer differed much on economic policies, workers turned to Republicans who were more responsive to their religious and moral concerns, above all their hostility to immigration.

Read more at Project Syndicate