Today marks the first day of Donald Trump’s second term as POTUS. For nearly a decade, Trump has dominated the political discourse in this country and has steadily grown his base. Simultaneously, American political analysts have fundamentally misunderstood right-wing populist movements by relying on education levels rather than economic relations to define class. This methodological error—defining working class simply as “anyone without a college degree”—has led to persistent strategic miscalculations by progressive forces.

A proper Marxist class analysis, focusing on relationship to capital and wage labor rather than educational credentials, reveals a very different picture: what liberals often misidentify as “working class conservatism” is actually a movement heavily rooted in the petty bourgeoisie—small business owners, contractors, and other small-scale employers who, despite often lacking college degrees, own capital and employ wage workers.

This confusion over class definitions has real consequences. By misidentifying the class character of right-wing movements, progressives have developed flawed strategies and narratives that fail to address the actual dynamics at play. By applying a materialist analysis to examine the true class composition of reactionary politics in America, we can better understand both its staying power and its potential points of weakness.

The Limits of Liberal Class Analysis

The mainstream framework for understanding American political alignment relies heavily on educational attainment as a proxy for class position. This creates a fundamental misreading of the situation, conflating formal education with economic class position. When we instead examine actual economic relations – particularly ownership of capital and relationship to wage labor – a very different picture emerges.

The small business owning class in America – owners of local construction companies, car dealerships, real estate firms, and agricultural enterprises – often lack college degrees but possess significant capital and employ wage laborers. This petty bourgeois class position shapes their political consciousness in ways that education-based analysis completely misses.

Rural America’s Class Structure

The transformation of rural America over the past century has not followed the simple narrative of decline that many assume. While agricultural employment has dramatically decreased, rural areas have developed complex class structures dominated by small-scale capital ownership. A typical rural community today features:

– Local construction contractors employing dozens of workers
– Real estate investors owning multiple rental properties
– Agricultural service businesses
– Retail and restaurant franchises
– Small manufacturing operations

This economic base creates a substantial petty bourgeois class that, while often lacking college degrees, has very different material interests from their wage-earning employees.

The Suburban Connection

The migration patterns between rural and suburban areas reveal crucial patterns in how class consciousness persists and transforms. Many suburban communities represent an extension of rural petty bourgeois relations into new geographic spaces. Small business owners and independent contractors bring not just their capital, but their entire worldview shaped by those economic relations.

This “rural-suburban pipeline” helps explain why suburban areas often maintain political alignments similar to their rural origins, even as their surface-level demographics change. The persistence of small property ownership as an economic form maintains the material basis for specific forms of political consciousness.

Cultural Transmission Through Economic Relations

The transmission of political consciousness across generations operates through concrete economic relationships, not just abstract cultural values. When children inherit small businesses, rental properties, or contractor operations from their parents, they also inherit a specific relationship to capital and labor that shapes their political outlook.

Religious institutions and social organizations in these communities often reflect and reinforce these economic relations, creating a comprehensive worldview that can persist even as superficial cultural markers change.

The Generational Question

However, this system is not static. As younger generations move into primarily urban areas and become integrated into different economic relations – particularly wage labor in large corporations or the tech sector – their political consciousness often begins to shift. This transformation is not primarily cultural but reflects their changed relationship to capital and labor.

Data from recent elections shows this process in action:
– Younger people from petty bourgeois backgrounds who become wage workers in urban areas show significant shifts in political alignment
– Those who maintain similar class positions to their parents (small business ownership, independent contracting) tend to maintain similar political orientations
– The key factor appears to be economic relations rather than geographic location or cultural exposure

Strategic Implications

Understanding the actual class basis of reactionary politics has crucial strategic implications for progressive movements:

1. The “working class” narrative about right-wing movements misidentifies both the problem and potential solutions
2. Strategic focus should be on building solidarity among wage workers across geographic and cultural divisions
3. Suburban organizing should account for the persistence of petty bourgeois class relations
4. Generational transformation is likely to follow economic transformation rather than cultural change alone

Looking Forward

The future of American political alignment will largely depend on how economic relations continue to evolve. Key factors to watch include:

– The relative decline of small business ownership in favor of corporate concentration
– Changes in patterns of property ownership, particularly among younger generations
– The transformation of suburban economies
– The evolution of class relations in the technology sector

Conclusion

Understanding reactionary politics through a materialist lens reveals it to be neither a mystery nor a simple product of cultural backwardness. Instead, it reflects concrete class relations that persist through specific economic forms and transmission mechanisms. Only by correctly identifying these mechanisms can progressive movements develop effective strategies for building working-class power and consciousness.

The failure to apply proper class analysis has led to persistent strategic errors by progressive forces in America. Moving forward requires both theoretical clarity about class relations and practical strategies based on this understanding. The transformation of American politics will ultimately follow the transformation of American class relations, not the other way around.