Last week, the Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton unveiled new research offering a bleak portrait of Mr. Trump’s base of white men
and women without a bachelor’s degree: They are, indeed, dying in droves, committing suicide and poisoning themselves with drugs and alcohol at much higher rates than blacks, Hispanics, or men and women in other advanced countries.
These include: “an increase in the rate of male mortality from risky
and unhealthful behaviors; a reduction in the net availability of marriage-age males in affected labor markets; a reduction in the fraction of young adults entering marriage; a fall in fertility accompanied by a rise in the fraction of births to teen and unmarried mothers; and a sharp jump in the fraction of children living in impoverished and, to a lesser degree, single-headed households.”
Can Mr. Trump do anything for these people?
It’s also hard to fathom how whites without a college degree would benefit from Mr. Trump’s proposal to cut $54 billion from the civilian discretionary budget — slashing projects to
help low-income families pay for heating in the winter or move to better neighborhoods; cutting nutrition assistance for mothers and help for low-income students to enter college.
President Trump cannot possibly believe that nixing the health insurance of 24 million poor or nearly poor Americans
to pay for tax cuts at the very top of the income distribution would serve the white Everyman he promised to defend.