Which is a more apt explanation of Trump's success?

[King of Kensington]

Which narrative do you find more convincing?  Was it a "whitelash" (Van Jones) where whites were voting to preserve their privileged position?  Or was it basically a working class revolt against establishment economics and politics?

[Hermit For Peace]

I think you made an apt comparison. It was both.

[Bismarck]

Nobody is voting to "preserve their position of privledge". They voted for the candidate who said he'd bring back good jobs and against the candidate who called them depolorable.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Dunning-Kruger effect, from both the voters and the candidate.

[pbrower2a]

Both worked. "Whitelash" was a rejection of the success of non-white minorities achieving success greater than theirs. Working class? Not the minority working class who trusted the middle class of their ethnic groups far more than they trusted Donald Trump.

It's as much a rebellion against the middle class whom Trump offered as a collection of elitists hostile to the low-brow culture of white proletarians. Got education? Listen to something other than country music? Disdain tabloid media? Prefer watching golf to watching NASCAR? Have a white-collar job? Then you are a damnable elitist, a traitor to the white race.

Donald Trump exploited such sentiments ably. He promised to bring down the elitists by compelling them to share white prole suffering... and pressure them to join the white proletarian culture. Never mind that the Master Class would take everything possible from the middle class by shifting taxes onto them so that the Master Class can be exempt from them.

So far as I can tell, Trump's dream is one of transforming America into one great plantation-prison.

"MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" -- No1

It's "MAKE AMERICANS SUFFER GREATLY!"