Materially, it makes little sense for blue-collar workers to vote for Modi, Orban, or Trump, a billionaire whose platform is to cut taxes for the rich. Hitler and Mussolini had their share of support from the poor too.
What are some of the theories of why this happens?
I know scapegoating foreigners for poverty is part of it. Wilhelm Reich wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism but I haven't read it.
Demonisation of Communism and Leftists. Liberals being fucking morons and useless. Fascists promote something like a bourgeoisie-proletariat alliance, in the sense they are all one people. In reality the workers gets fucked over and the bourgeoisie gets richer.
Also, there is no left-wing in the USA. At least no left-wing with a chance at getting in power.
It's kind of ingenious how there's hardly any path to becoming a leftist in America outside of being a disaffected weirdo who got bored one day and read theory. That seems to be the main pipeline, although maybe that's changing with podcasts and YouTube, but I'm not holding my breath. That all seems very surface level aesthetics.
You either end up simply a liberal by ingraining yourself in the process, or you become a right winger because you fell into something like being a small business dipshit and your only social sphere all go to the same mega church. There's no material base of leftism, no community, nothing much outside of increasingly less powerful labor unions. That's part of why places like Minnesota swing weirdly far left on some things, prevalence of unions.
I do have hope though. I think a lot of people in America still believe they'll be rich someday if they keep their head down and work hard. That illusion can't last much longer. I'm optimistic and everyone here should be too. Don't get cynical.