Here’s another in a series of articles exploring What the Heck Happened on November 8, particularly where it involves that vaunted White Working Class voter. According to The Atlantic article, Clinton didn’t lose their votes because she didn’t deliver an economic message but rather, they didn’t/couldn’t/didn’t want to hear it.

Trump’s white voters do support the mommy state, but only so long as it’s mothering them. Most of them don’t seem eager to change Medicare or Social Security, but they’re fine with repealing Obamacare and its more diverse pool of 20 million insured people. They’re happy for the government to pick winners and losers, so long as beleaguered coal and manufacturing companies are in the winner’s circle. Massive deficit-financed spending on infrastructure? Under Obama, that was dangerous government overreach, but under Trump, it’s a jobs plan by a guy they know won’t let Muslims and Mexicans cut in line to get work renovating highways and airports.

The writer isn’t too explicit about what the apparent cognitive dissonance among White Working Class voters is about, so we’ll make it: They’re afraid that the benefits of a liberal social democracy, benefits they would like for themselves, are going to “Those People,” AKA, immigrants and people of color. So, instead of voting for more for everyone, including themselves, they will vote against Those People having more (and, though the writer doesn’t say this explicitly, possibly screwing over themselves).