Katie Couric argued on Bill Maher’s podcast that anti-intellectualism and class resentment were driving forces behind Trump’s base.
She contended the growing wealth gap and socioeconomic disparities in the U.S. had fueled resentment, and that feelings of jealousy and bitterness toward elites looking down on struggling citizens were corroding.
“The socioeconomic disparities are a lot and class resentment is a lot and anti-intellectualism and elitism is what is driving many of these anti-establishment — which are Trump voters — so, I think that is a huge problem that we have to address,” Couric said.
However, Bill Maher pushed back, suggesting Trump voters had legitimate complaints about issues like border policy hypocrisy among Democratic leaders.
He said the media failed to understand the perspective of typical Trump supporters, who saw the Democratic platform as promoting even greater threats like gender ideology in schools and pervasive anti-Trump sentiment.
“I mean globalization and the transition from an industrial to a technological society — I don’t know if you’ve ever been jealous of someone else or resentful — it is such a corroding and bitter, almost bile feeling,” she said.
“I think that when people who are really struggling see people who have everything, and are on top of that, looking down on them, it is just a recipe for such anger and resentment and grievance,” she added.
While not defending Trump himself, Maher wanted more acknowledgment that from their view, Trump was seen as a bulwark against these types of “madness.”
“Not to defend Trump, but to defend the people who still vote for him. Because what they see on the other side, to them, is even more dangerous. Because it’s closer to home,” Maher said.
“Those kind of things are what they say, ‘That’s why I’m voting for Trump,'” Maher added. “‘We don’t like him but he’s all that stands between us and madness,’ That’s their view. I would like that view presented [by the media].”
