Lots of comments on this thread illustrating why the Repubs before Trump didn’t do very well with blue collar whites, and lower income white collar whites.
Reagan’s social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy did fine with white blue collar workers.
” In 1984, Reagan confirmed his support by winning nearly 60% of the popular vote and carried 49 of the 50 states.
The Reagan Democrats were members of the Democratic Party before and after the Reagan presidency, but voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and for his vice president, George H. W. Bush, in 1988, producing their landslide victories. They were mostly white socially conservative blue-collar workers who lived in the Northeast and were attracted to Reagan’s social conservatism on issues such as abortion and to his hawkish foreign policy.
I’ve been on both sides, and when you’re on the down side, you learn a lot about human nature.