White working-class voters have consistently prioritized racial power over economic interests, a pattern dating back to Reconstruction and continuing through the Trump era, according to historical analysis.
Historical roots of racial loyalty
W.E.B. Du Bois, in his 1935 work Black Reconstruction, identified the concept of 'psychological wages of whiteness,' where poor whites received social and political benefits from participating in Black subjugation rather than economic gains. This trade-off has persisted for 150 years, with white working-class voters repeatedly siding with conservative elites who stoke racial anxieties, even when it hurts their economic bottom line.
After the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, revoked land grants to freed Black people and instead gave plots to poor whites, framing them as the 'real victims' of the war. He also deeded Indigenous lands to white settlers under the Homestead Act, further entrenching racial divisions.
Modern political behavior
In contemporary politics, non-college-educated white voters have overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in three presidential elections. However, his approval rating among this group dropped 14 points in 15 months, falling below 50% in 2026, as economic conditions did not improve under his second term. Despite this, analysts caution against assuming economic dissatisfaction will lead to changed voting patterns.
Research shows that social, demographic, and cultural status threat, not economic hardship, drove white rage fueling Trump's rise. For example, Trump's base supported a $70 billion increase in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement rather than demanding economic relief for working families.
Police state participation as reward
The psychological wages of whiteness are realized through participation in a police state that targets racialized groups. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, any white person could detain suspected fugitives, a power that continued after emancipation. Today, ICE detainments often result from anonymous tips by citizens, with 50 people dying in ICE custody as of June 2026, most without criminal records.
As historian Gautham Rao wrote in White Power: Policing American Slavery, 'It was a system in which white power and police power were one and the same.' This alliance with public authority over economic interests is 'as economically irrational then as it is now,' the analysis states.
Economic irrationality of racial voting
Despite claims that economic anxiety drove white working-class voters to the right, data shows that even low-income white households possess more than 20 times the wealth of low-income Black households on average. The pandemic wealth bump under Biden administration bailouts widened this gap. As one white labor agitator wrote in the 19th century, 'I was formerly, like yourself, a very warm advocate of the abolition of slavery. This was before I saw that there was white slavery.'
The analysis concludes that no amount of economic stimulus or healthcare subsidies will outweigh the psychological wages of whiteness, as the point of the trade-off is 'keeping others from putting food on theirs.'
