Giving the working class what it wants?

 After losing a presidential election, parties usually have a debate about what went wrong and how they can win over new voters.  2020 was different--most Republicans boasted about the composition of their votes and skated around the problem that there weren't enough of them.  One of the latest examples is from Jim Banks, a member of the House of Representatives from Indiana.  Banks proposed that the Republican party could and should "permanently become the Party of the Working Class."  He said it could do this partly by continuing with Donald Trump's opposition to immigration and free trade but "supplement it with new, relevant ideas."  Specifically, he proposed "anti-wokeness," opposition to "regressive coronavirus lockdowns," and taking a position against "Big Tech."  Would these positions actually appeal to the working class?  For immigration and free trade, the answer is clearly yes.  It's hard to specify what "anti-wokeness" means, but the answer is probably yes--however, this cluster of issues isn't very important to voters, particularly working-class voters.  As I've written, there's not much class difference in opinions on covid restrictions--moreover, this issue is likely to fade as more people get vaccinated.  That leaves opposition to "Big Tech," which has been a central theme for many other Republican "populists," notably Josh Hawley.  

Gallup did surveys that asked about "technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google" in August 2019 and late January 2021.  On question was about general views of technology companies.  The balance of positive and negative views (very or somewhat positive minus very or somewhat negative):

                                        2019            2021

College grad                        -1            -10

Some college                     +16            -23

No college                        +22            -4

There was also a question about whether the government should increase, decrease or not change regulation of such companies.  The percent in favor of increasing regulation:  

                                        2019            2021

College grad                        58%          68%

Some college                       47%         56%

No college                            41%        47%

 Less educated people (the only measure of class available in the survey) had more favorable views of "Big Tech" in 2019.  There was no consistent class difference in 2021.  At both times, less educated people were less likely to support increased regulation.  So regardless of whether opposition to big tech is generally popular (opinions seem to be pretty evenly divided), it doesn't have any special appeal to the working class--if anything, it has more appeal to the middle class.

This shouldn't be surprising--people like bargains, and Facebook and Google provide their services for free while Amazon provides goods at low cost.   There are concerns about privacy and their use of personal data, but these are the kinds of things that educated people are likely to be more concerned about.  This example leads back to a point that I've made before:  Republicans like the idea of appealing to the working class, but don't want to make a real effort to do it.  Rather than trying to identify policies that would benefit the working class or appeal to the working class, they just attribute their own views to the working class.  (The one prominent Republican who has proposed measures that might benefit the working class is the the pseudo-populists' bete noire, Mitt Romney).  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]