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Not to wear out the phrase "petty bourgeois," but again, we're seeing that was a more apt description of Trumpers than "working class". This lady owns a flower shop. https://www.cbs7.com/2021/01/13/first-on-cbs7-fbi-arrests-jenny-cudd-for-rioting-at-capitol/
I think a lot of the coastal media was unaware that there's a non-college-educated middle class in this country. They lean older and live in affordable areas and are either entrepeneurs or valorize entrepeneurship. They own homes and are likelier to have served in the military.
These are the "working class" people I grew up with. No one in the older generation of my family completed college (I was the first in my family), but they were largely home owners. My dad has a pension from being a firefighter. My mom owns restaurants.
Once you grasp this, I think a lot of their views make more sense. They're often hostile to labor, because they are either bosses or aspire to be. They don't identify with the working class, even when they are working class.
A specific example would be a man who only has a high school education and has a trade job, such as being a plumber or contractor. He might be an employee of a company, but he is likely to aspire to striking out and starting his own company.
Again, there is nothing wrong with any of this and lots of people follow these economic paths without giving into the siren call of fascism. But that such people are disproportionately right wing or even fascist is, as far as I understand, a historical fact.
There's an appealing but unfortunately wrong-headed narrative that Trump voters will be pulled left with robust social spending, based on this misrepresentation of them as "working class". We should do robust social spending, but not in the vain hope of capturing these people.
We saw this with Obamacare. Objectively, it's a boon to the petty bourgeois, because it helps them realize their entrepeneurial aspirations. But the idea that someone, especially someone non-white, was getting something for "free" just pissed them off too much to see that.
Remember "Joe the Plumber," the guy who want to start a plumbing business? Plumbers benefit from the ACA, but he refused to see that, because he was so hyper-focused on the idea that someone else might be helped, too.
