To the Editor:Re “The Deep Source of Trump’s Appeal,” by David Brooks (column, July 12):I’ve always believed that the mass of Donald Trump supporters were fundamentally just working-class Americans who, as the country’s wealth increasingly skewed to the 1 percent ever since President Ronald Reagan, found themselves running faster and faster to stay in the same place, and finally (and justifiably) started to fume about it. While Mr. Brooks doesn’t flat out say it, I take away from his article that, rather than viewing their plight as old-fashioned liberals used to — as plain and simple economic class exploitation — the white working class has been conned by demagogues like Mr. Trump into seeing it as existential, zero-sum identity politics. If Mr. Brooks’s suggestion is that religious leaders guide Americans back to some form of enlightened democratic civility, they’re going to have to drop a bit more wealth redistribution into their message to the congregation. Steven DoloffNew YorkTo the Editor:It was only a matter of time before the voters who have become MAGA nation — having been dismissed as “deplorables,” sniffed at as people who “cling to guns or religion,” and generally considered less worthy — would decide to stand up for themselves and say, “We matter, too, and as much as you do.”

---

Persons: David Brooks, I’ve, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, Brooks doesn’t, demagogues, Trump, Steven Doloff, “, ” Organizations: — Locations: York, MAGA