Why MAGA Nation Embraces Donald Trump

To the Editor:

Re “The Deep Source of Trump’s Appeal,” by David Brooks (column, July 12):

I’ve always believed that the mass of Donald Trump supporters were fundamentally just working-class Americans who, as the country’s wealth increasingly skewed to the 1 percent ever since President Ronald Reagan, found themselves running faster and faster to stay in the same place, and finally (and justifiably) started to fume about it.

While Mr. Brooks doesn’t flat out say it, I take away from his article that, rather than viewing their plight as old-fashioned liberals used to — as plain and simple economic class exploitation — the white working class has been conned by demagogues like Mr. Trump into seeing it as existential, zero-sum identity politics.

If Mr. Brooks’s suggestion is that religious leaders guide Americans back to some form of enlightened democratic civility, they’re going to have to drop a bit more wealth redistribution into their message to the congregation.

Steven Doloff
New York

To the Editor:

Having been dismissed as “deplorables,” sniffed at as people who “cling to guns or religion,” and generally considered less worthy, it was only a matter of time before the voters who have become MAGA nation would decide to stand up for themselves and say, We matter, too, and as much as you do.

For all his many shortcomings, Donald Trump does have a keen eye for a marketing opportunity, and he was happy to swoop in and exploit the concerns of this group.

Democrats may prefer to fault President Biden’s frailty, but they have no one but themselves to blame or the burgeoning strength of the adversary they face.