Young White Men Abandon Democrats, Flock to Trump’s Economic Nationalism

President Trump’s reshaping of the GOP from being aligned to the Chamber of Commerce to a party serving the interests of America’s working and middle class is winning over young white American men en masse.

Ahead of Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016, nearly 50 percent of young white men favored Democrats, and 36 percent favored the GOP. That 14-point gain has flipped, and young white men now favor the GOP over the Democrats by 46 percent to 37 percent.

At the time, the GOP was aligned with the big business lobby and Wall Street in promoting endless multinational free trade that readily outsourced American jobs to foreign countries.

The Republican establishment, in 2016, was pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would have eliminated millions of working and middle-class jobs while also driving down wages for remaining American workers.

That year, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) rebuked Trump’s economic nationalist trade agenda at a gathering with the pro-mass immigration GOP megadonor billionaire Koch brothers.

GOP leaders were also consistently pushing back against Trump’s economic nationalism on immigration in 2016, when he campaigned to reduce immigration to the U.S. and build a border wall to boost Americans’ wages and quality of life.

Since his election though, Trump has transformed the Republican Party into one based on the interests of American workers, rather than big business donors. That successful transformation has translated into a winning streak among young white American men.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos Poll reveals that 46 percent of young white men now favor the Republicans over Democrats, a near complete switch from where the demographic group stood just two years ago when the GOP was still led by free traders and open borders advocates.

Likewise, in just two years, Trump has changed the platform of the Republican Party. No longer do Americans identify the GOP with the big business lobby’s preference for multinational free trade that outsources American jobs.

The latest Harvard/Harris polling finds that a majority of 56 percent of American voters say they associate tariffs on imported steel and aluminum with the Republican Party. Less than ten percent of voters said they associated tariffs on imported goods with the Democrats.

With immigration — whereas party leaders once talked tough on illegal immigration as they favored the big business lobby’s mass legal immigration, cheap labor economy — Trump has single-handedly shaped a GOP that is now associated with reducing immigration to benefit American citizens.

In the newest CBS News/YouGov poll, about 42 percent of American voters in battleground districts associate the Republican Party with Trump’s selective, reduction approach to immigration.

Trump’s shifting of the GOP has also made more clear to voters where the Democrats fall on the issue of immigration. The same CBS/YouGov poll found that 47 percent of voters in battleground districts said the Democrats’ approach to immigration is essentially open borders, where all foreign nationals seeking admittance to the U.S. are allowed to enter and compete for American jobs against workers.

White Americans increasingly agree with Trump on immigration, with nearly 55 percent of white voters saying illegal immigration reduces U.S. wages.

Though Trump has quickly moved the GOP towards the popular, economic nationalist agenda that the majority of Republican voters support, he continues to have to fight the Republican-controlled Congress on the issues.

Last month, House Speaker Paul Ryan failed to pass an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens that would have resulted in zero net reduction to legal immigration levels, as Breitbart News noted.

Even more recently, Republican establishment congressmen and Senators are trying to fight Trump’s popular tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. In usual fashion, the Chamber of Commerce has marched in lockstep with the Republican establishment on Trump’s fair trade agenda, announcing this week that they will actively fight the steel and aluminum tariffs ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.