2024 Volume 58 Pages 123-146
The subject of this paper is a comparative study of employment by industry and job polarization between the states supporting Trump(Trump states), swing states, and the Democratic states. Section 1 overviewed previous studies around the factors of rising authoritarianism(supporting trend to Trump)in the US and identified remaining issues. Section 2 identified the differences in the employment structure by industry and job polarization, especially their degree of progress and results, in each state. Section 3 showed that they produced differences in the university degree ratio, race component, and foreign-born ratio in each state. This paper is based on the findings from previous studies, analyzing various statistics, and interviews conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the analysis of this paper shows that the degree of progress in employment by industry and job polarization is higher in the Trump states and swing states from 1990 to 2019, the polarization of them as of 2019 is still far more advanced in the Democratic states. This paper realizes that these dynamics were the economic backgrounds affecting the population and social dynamics in each state, and analyzed the university degree ratios, race components, and foreign-born ratios in each state because these factors were related to the degree of the rise of authoritarianism. The result of population and social changes as of 2020 revealed that Democratic states still advanced in all aspects, although the pace of population and social changes were more rapid in Trump and swing states.
“Rapid degree of progress” in these factors from 1990 to 2020 may have evoked the dissatisfaction of some workers in Trump and swing states, and the “results” of the population and social changes in 2020 lead to the support for the Democrats in the Democratic states. Although some manufacturing workers had dissatisfaction and supported Trump in Democratic states, it is suggested that the support for authoritarianism was not realized in total because of the advanced population and social changes in these states. It is not deniable that the remaining relative high ratio of the manufacturing workers in Trump and swing states would lead to the support for Trump in these states.
This paper suggests that the position of the swing states is transitional or in an original position in the great employment and occupational structural changes in the US. Therefore, this suggests that the direction of the swing states might decide whether authoritarianism will take root in the US.
