The 2016 election was a culture war over esteem distribution via taste.

Evidence

Trump’s movement succeeded because it tapped into a giant swath of angry people who felt a loss of status. While much was made about his victory as an uprising of the white working class, his most devoted support came from the ranks of wealthy heartland business owners—the self-made petite bourgeoisie who built small empires through car dealerships, fast-food franchises, and pool-cleaning businesses. Like Trump, they were discontented that their economic success had not translated into higher cultural standing. The 2016 election was less a straightforward class war between rich and poor and more a culture war over the distribution of esteem. It played out through the lens of taste: Multicultural, meritocratic coastal liberals, with their slender physiques, Priuses, IPAs, and pan-seared Wagyu steaks, were pitted against heartland small business owners and white working-class voters driving Ford F-150s, drinking bland pilsners, and ordering well-done steaks. … Trump appealed to “a social class [that] sees its perceived displacement as the result of a double conspiracy of outsiders and élitists…. They look down on us and they have no right to look down on us.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 432

Categorization

• SEED: Strong essay angle: the ‘distribution of esteem’ as an alternative frame for understanding populist politics — a status economy rather than an economic one.
• XREF: Directly connects to the book’s central ‘death of the sellout’ mechanism and the reader’s goal of tracing how status dynamics drive the omnivore monoculture.