OPINION:
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This year, global superstar Beyonce, known to her fans as “Queen Bey” and characterized by Wikipedia as “a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century,” dropped a country music-inspired album called “Cowboy Carter.”
She’s not the first Black musician to cross over. Rapper Nelly joined country group Florida Georgia Line to produce the megahit “Lil Bit,” with an accompanying music video in which the rapper is seen cruising the Southern countryside in his Ram TRX pickup truck, stopping at Black barbershops and watching youths play football and hip-hop dance in a park.
It’s a remarkable blend of urban and White working-class cultures.
Pop star Justin Timberlake teamed up with Lexington, Kentucky, native Chris Stapleton to jam on the guitar in “Say Something.” Morgan Wallen, Billboard’s top country artist of 2023, and rapper Lil Durk took to the Nashville bar scene to collaborate on their monster hit “Broadway Girls.” One of the hottest new songs in country music is by Austin Williams, who mashes up 10 iconic rap songs from the 1990s, in a tribute to Dr. Dre and Master P.
I could go on.
Why is this important? It suggests a cultural shift is underway that could dramatically alter the political landscape. And the shift is squarely centered on an audience that only Donald Trump is talking to: the broad American middle class, a class not divided by color, gender or ethnicity.
In today’s era of identity politics, elite progressives would like you to believe there’s more that divides us than unites us. However, the music industry — which makes the big bucks by reaching the broadest audience available — would seemingly disagree.
In politics, consultants, pollsters and commentators like to focus on the Black vote, the Hispanic vote, the male vote, the female vote, the youth vote and the older adult vote. For them, it’s pigeonholing people who live in cities vs. suburbanites vs. those in the exurbs vs. rural voters. The assumption is that these potential voters have drastically different values, priorities and interests.
But what if they don’t? Don’t all these people go to the grocery store and feel the pinch of inflation? Don’t they all have to fill their gas tank? Don’t they all want to buy a home, find a partner, and raise a family?
According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, adjusted for inflation, individual net worth was up just 0.7% through President Biden’s first three years in office, compared with 16% through Mr. Trump’s first three years.
Mr. Trump’s brand of populism works — and it is realigning the political landscape.
Compact columnist Sohrab Ahmari writes of what he calls “sado-progressivism,” where the liberal governance model is “seemingly designed to make middle-class life a little harder and more miserable by the day, all in order to appease the boutique causes that animate urban Democrats’ activist base.”
Banning gasoline-powered cars, and natural gas stoves and ovens? Check. Reducing road lanes to accommodate bikers and buses? Check. Accommodating illegals with housing, welfare checks and jobs? Check. Forgiving loans for rich, highly educated university graduates? Check.
Allowing criminals back on the street without bail and many times without even a prosecution? Check. Defunding the police? Check. Repurposing public parks, recreation centers and sometimes even schools to accommodate the homeless? Check. Replacing plastic straws with paper ones that melt in your mouth? Double-check.
Donald Trump may be a billionaire, but he knows how to connect with the priorities of the working class. Heck, he, too, knows the entertainment industry and where the greatest audience is. He couldn’t have spent decades producing “The Apprentice” and appearing in commercially successful films without this knowledge.
Mr. Biden likes to dub himself “Scranton Joe” and has vowed to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” He became the first sitting president to join a picket line, locking down the official endorsement of the union bosses. His support among the rank and file, however, is lackluster:
An October New York Times/Siena poll of six swing states found Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden tied among union members.
“Far from being limited to the white working class, this disaffection is spreading to working-class people of color,” The Wall Street Journal reported in May.
Why?
“Today’s Democratic leaders package pro-union measures and rhetoric within a larger worldview — on issues like religion, patriotism, gender and law enforcement — that many working-class Americans find alienating,” the Journal explained. “Trump’s GOP better reflects the social identity of lunch-bucket Americans. It is also more attentive to their material interests on two crucial issues: immigration and energy.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this month found much the same.
Mr. Biden “is hemorrhaging support among voters without college degrees — a large group that includes Black people, Hispanic women, young voters and suburban women,” Reuters reported on June 1. “Biden’s support among voters without a four-year degree is down 10 percentage points, compared to this point in the 2020 campaign.”
Americans without college degrees made up 3 out of 5 voters in 2020 — in other words, they are the majority, silent though they may be.
“We’ve become the party of the worker,” Mr. Trump boasted at a May 1 rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “We’ve become the party of the middle income.”
That’s not a “Lil Bit” of anything. It’s saying something.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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