Best Of Series Part 1: Psychology & Trump
Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Democracy at Work
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Economic Update, we take a look back at Donald Trump's first term as president through the lens of psychology with Dr. Harriet Fraad. She explains what could have led people to vote for him instead of the alternative, and provides a backdrop of the socio-economic situation facing his supporters at that time. She is followed by another interview with Professor Wolff and Dr. Arlie Hochschild, a former sociology professor at UC Berkeley and a renowned author. Her research provides insight into the reasons why many still support Mr. Trump, despite their deteriorating socio-economic situation today.
The d@w Team Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff is a DemocracyatWork.info Inc. production. We make it a point to provide the show free of ads and rely on viewer support to continue doing so. You can support our work by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/democracyatwork Or you can go to our website: https://www.democracyatwork.info/donate Every donation counts and helps us provide a larger audience with the information they need to better understand the events around the world they can't get anywhere else. We want to thank our devoted community of supporters who help make this show and others we produce possible each week.1:01 We kindly ask you to also support the work we do by encouraging others to subscribe to our YouTube channel and website: www.democracyatwork.info
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's episode is a little different than usual. It is a compilation of segments from previous |
| 0:25.1 | episodes of economic update that remain relevant for all of us today. And I hope it provides |
| 0:32.6 | you with a fresh look at what's changed, how far we've come, and how far we haven't over the last decade. |
| 0:40.3 | I'm very happy to announce again, for those of you who may not have known, that the first program each month is devoted to an interview that I have with Dr. Harriet Fraud. |
| 0:53.3 | So let's begin with a first question that is perhaps |
| 0:57.3 | the most frequently received question that we get in this program these last few months now. |
| 1:05.2 | How do you account as a psychological specialist, a professional. |
| 1:11.6 | How do you account, knowing all you do, for the election of Donald Trump? |
| 1:16.6 | What happened in this society to produce that outcome? |
| 1:20.6 | How do you think about it? |
| 1:22.6 | Well, this is what I think. |
| 1:24.6 | I think that so many blue-collar women, |
| 1:28.3 | as well as white-collar women, |
| 1:30.8 | but particularly blue-collar men and women, |
| 1:33.5 | voted for Trump because they found |
| 1:36.7 | that the neoliberal-type capitalists |
| 1:39.2 | like Hillary Clinton and Obama promised them prosperity and didn't deliver. |
| 1:46.0 | They were willing to go out on a limb and vote for somebody they wouldn't have voted forever before, |
| 1:52.0 | someone black, someone young, Obama, because he promised hope and change. |
| 1:58.0 | And people were excited because they knew changes had to happen for them to have a fair |
| 2:02.9 | shot at life. |
| 2:04.7 | Well, they didn't get that hope and change there either. |
... |
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