I haven't read that book but the voting pattern the American working class exhibits is widespread, and so is unlikely to stem from its unusual love of success alone. This quote from a now-defunct Telegraph blog by Ed West captures the core of the matter (in a somewhat inflammatory style):
>Liberals are baffled and infuriated that poor whites vote Republican, yet voting on tribal grounds is a feature of all multi-ethnic democracies, whether it's Northern Ireland, Lebanon or Iraq. The more a majority becomes a minority the more tribal its voting becomes, so that increasingly the Republicans have become the "white party"; making this point indelicately got Pat Buchanan the sack, but many others make it too. ...
>The Economist recently asked if the Tories had a “race problem”, but it may just be that democracy has a race problem.
>Liberals are baffled and infuriated that poor whites vote Republican, yet voting on tribal grounds is a feature of all multi-ethnic democracies, whether it's Northern Ireland, Lebanon or Iraq. The more a majority becomes a minority the more tribal its voting becomes, so that increasingly the Republicans have become the "white party"; making this point indelicately got Pat Buchanan the sack, but many others make it too. ...
>The Economist recently asked if the Tories had a “race problem”, but it may just be that democracy has a race problem.