The College-Educated Trump Voter

Abstract

In trying to explain the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, many post-election analyses focused on President Trumps’ perceived white working-class base. The idea that President Trump is an advocate for the working-class, though, is up for debate: many scholars have highlighted the ways in which President Trump is more of an advocate for the elite than for the working-class. Given President Trump’s appeal to individuals outside of the working-class, I decided to interview Trump supporters at Boston College—a campus with one of the wealthier student bodies in the nation. In my interviews, I looked for different narrative frames and discourses that my interviewees used in their articulation of their support for President Trump. I found that interviewees drew on parental influences, emphasized the value of hard work, shared narratives of victimization, and more. In addition, I learned about the large network of conservatives at Boston College. Given white working-class tropes surrounding the 2016 Election and stereotypes of college campuses as liberal echo chambers, this paper highlights the presence of conservatism on Boston College’s campus and calls for more research on the topic.