Poor Whites and Donald Trump.

• Author: Munch, Regina
• Position: Book review

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

Nancy Isenberg

Viking. 480 pages. $28

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Whatever else you might say about him, Donald Trump knows his audience. "I love the poorly educated," the Ivy Leaguer crowed in February to a crowd in Las Vegas.

In most elections, describing one's constituency this way would be insulting, but not in this presidential race. Trumps supporters don't begrudgingly identify themselves as lacking education; they do so with pride.

Mainstream media outlets have obsessed over the question: Who are these people? What do they want? Who could possibly see Trump's buffoonery, his braggadocio, his explicit racism as presidential? The explanation has been class-based: Trump supporters are economically insecure, and are latching onto the possibility that someone will represent them. They believe in Trump because he professes that he is beholden to no outside interests, no highfalutin philosophy or economic power that will stomp on them.

This very vocal constituency has brought into the spotlight a new genre of historical and sociological investigations. One of the most influential is Louisiana State University historian Nancy Isenberg's White Trash: The 400Year Untold History of Class in America. Isenberg states her intention clearly: to upend our national myth that we live in a classless society.

While we tell ourselves that the American story is one of opportunity for all, the United States has always been defined by class distinctions based on land ownership. White poverty is not an accident, but an integral part of the structure of American society.

"Far more than we choose to acknowledge," Isenberg writes, "our relentless class system evolved out of recurring agrarian notions regarding the character and potential of the land, the value of labor, and critical concepts of breeding." Poor whites, she notes, have been with us from the beginning. "Embarrassing lower-class populations have always been numerous," a reviled yet necessary underclass. To pretend otherwise is to fool ourselves about our national identity.

Although White Trash does not and is not meant to specifically address Trump's campaign, reviewers and pundits have drawn obvious parallels between the disenfranchised white poor that Isenberg describes and Trump's constituency. What can we learn from this book and others like it?

Isenberg's narrative begins with the very first European settlers on the American continent. While we are taught to believe the New World...