Facts about "Reagan Democrats"

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Since this incredibly stupid term is rearing its ugly head again, some things need to be pointed out:

1-"Reagan Democrats" by and large were not blue collar union workers. For proof go look at the 1984 results in Western Pennsylvania or the West Virginia coalfield.
2-Most "Reagan Democrats" ceased to even be Democrats after that. They were mostly the white blue dog southerners.
3-Reagan was last in an election 32 years ago. The youngest people who voted for Reagan are going to be 50 years old. And these would be people who voted for him in his first election, not consistent Democratic voters prior to that.

Basically the actual Reagan Democrats are all either in retirement homes or dead today. They're not commuting to their stereotypical blue collar job listening to John Mellancamp and Bruce Springsteen along the way and there's no group of people or demographic today that could be accurately defined as even sharing the traits of "Reagan Democrats" who are an important swing demographic. The term is meaningless as applied to any 21st century election. You might as well talk about "LBJ Republicans". So no, Trump is not going to win any states on the strength of "Reagan Democrats", the few that remain might vote for him but they've been voting Republican for decades now already.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The problem with the term isn't so much that it's inaccurate, but that it's very vaguely defined and isn't being used as much else but a general Handwave as to why Trump can win states he won't.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It kinda seems like right wing posters on this forum use the term "Reagan Democrats" in a manner that suggest it's like a video game power up...

"You acquired Reagan Democrats!!  +15% white vote to your score!"

And that's why they talk about this made up group, because it's easy to make outlandish predictions when you can just justify with a deus ex machina of some mythical voting bloc swinging to your candidate en masse.

If someone says "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over blue collar swing voters", then that's easy to challenge. People will ask how many blue collar swing voters live in NJ and if they're even a particularly Trump-friendly group to begin with. But "Trump can win New Jersey if he wins over Reagan Democrats" isn't as easy to shoot down, because it's not a clearly defined group and it's a "group" the media basically defines as being willing to swing to Republicans, and likes to pretend always do en masse.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Little tidbit, if we are talking about Southern Democrats who voted for Reagan (and possibly Republican after that), they absolutely did not defect until 1984.  Jimmy Carter dominated the rural South in 1980 and only (barely) lost the Southern states that he did because Reagan won the more populated counties...

That's the point. These people were the real Reagan Democrats, and they aren't Democrats anymore.

If you're looking for a group of "Reagan Democrats" besides them, then best fitting candidate are middle class suburbanites who were buying into fears over crime and racial tensions. This group also voted for George HW Bush, but many did defect back to Clinton and have been swing to D-leaning voters since. And they also don't really exist anymore, since the crime issues today are NOTHING like in the 80s, and people in this group are exactly the type of swing voters who are likely to think Trump is an ignorant buffoon. It doesn't really matter who the Reagan Democrats were, they don't matter 32 years later.