“The educated people and the leader class no longer have any character, and you can’t count on them,” Richard Nixon snarled in the summer of 1971. “When we need support on tough problems, the uneducated are the ones that are with us.” I thought of that quote after Trump said to a crowd of building trades union members in 2016, “I love them [the building trades], and they’re great, and their people are fantastic . . . And it’s time that we give you the level playing field you deserve.”

The list of differences between the political styles of Richard Nixon and Donald Trump is long. But the similarity they share is perhaps the most important feature of their political careers: both figures had a keen understanding of the importance of appealing to blue-collar working-class voters and how to do it effectively. The building trades were the focal point for both presidents and seemed to encapsulate their vision of the type of “working man” they wanted on their side.

Their strategies went beyond simply wanting more votes in order to win. Both recognized — Nixon in a more coherent way — that building this support disorients the traditional working-class base of loyalty usually enjoyed by the Democrats. Nixon was exploiting the cracks in the New Deal coalition, and Trump is looking to deliver the final nail in the coffin.