Professor Pruitt Comments on White Working-Class Voters and Trump Campaign for NPR

Professor Lisa R. Pruitt was interviewed by National Public Radio in programs analyzing president-elect Donald Trump’s appeal to white working-class voters.  Pruitt spoke to the subject for “On Point,” a program produced by Boston’s WBUR and broadcast nationally by 314 NPR stations, and Sacramento station KVIE’s program “Insight with Beth Ruyak.”

Interviewed on “On Point,” Pruitt talked about the frustration and despair of working-class families in areas of the country that have suffered economic losses in the globalized economy. “With the loss of good jobs in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and through the Rust Belt, we see working-class families falling into despair, and I think that many of them voted for Trump out of desperation for change, but also because they found him relatable,” Pruitt said. “He spoke to their concerns about jobs in a very direct, very blunt way, and it clearly resonated with them.”

Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor at UC Davis School of Law, is a scholar whose recent work explores the legal relevance of rural spatiality, including how it inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity.  Pruitt's work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.

Primary Category

Tags