'White working class not social basis for Trump’s presidential bid'

The white working class is not the social basis for New York multibillionaire Donald Trump’s bid for president as suggested by President Barack Obama, an American political activist and analyst says. 

Joe Iosbaker, a leader of the Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday when asked about Obama who has recently said Trump is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class Americans to boost his election campaign.

In a radio interview airing on Monday, Obama said Trump has fuelled the flames of resentment among workers who have been thrown out of the economy by technological innovation and the 2008 financial crisis.

“I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign,” he added.

“What is the social basis for Donald Trump’s bid for president? Is it the white working class as suggested by President Obama,” Iosbaker asked, saying, “I don’t think so.”

“To begin with, Trump is a rich man, he is hostile to the union, the organization that working people built and join to defend themselves against rich people and the politicians that do their bidding,” he noted.

“The workers who support Trump are small percentage of the white section of the working class,” he stated.

“In my experience as a union leader, most white workers can be won to standing with their black, Chicano, Mexican immigrants, Arab and Muslim coworkers. This is because, in reality, white workers have more in common with their minority brothers and sisters than they have with their white bosses,” Iosbaker stated.

“It’s not the white workers who have built the airwaves with hatred for the first black president, it’s rich extremists like Trump,” he added.

“Other than blaming the victims, the white workers who have suffered from the corporate looting of the country, President Obama should be blaming Trump’s peers and Obama’s own supporters on the Wall Street,” he concluded.

Trump, who has never held elected office, is still leading the crowded Republican presidential primary field, despite the fact that his campaign has been marked by controversial statements, including with disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants and Muslims.