I’d argue the real dividing line is optimism. Consider this: Two-thirds of Hillary Clinton’s supporters think the next generation will be in better shape than we are today, or least the same, according to Pew Research. The reverse is true for Trump’s camp. Sixty-eight percent of his supporters think the next generation will be worse off. What’s more, the vast majority of Trump voters say life is worse today for people like them than it was 50 years ago. Only two percent —two!— think life is better now and that their children will also see improvement.

What we’re seeing is a hope gap. And it turns out that hope isn’t necessarily linked to a person’s current circumstances. Folks living in a poor community can still believe their children’s lives will be better, and people working in a reasonably secure local economy can still despair for the future. Rothwell’s work suggests it’s the communities that have seen the least societal change that are most likely to support the New York billionaire—by and large, they have fewer immigrants, fewer lost jobs, fewer impacts from global trade. People who have lost something aren’t voting for Trump, at least not uniformly. It’s the people who think they’re about to lose something…

As it happens, high school graduates are the least hopeful Americans out there. Only a fifth think the next generation of Americans will have better lives, the lowest percentage of any demographic group, according to Pew. They’re also the most likely to think that they’d be better off living 50 years ago, when low-skill jobs in manufacturing were plentiful. And the picture for white high school graduates is probably even gloomier than Pew’s numbers show; their figures include black Americans, who are far more optimistic about the future and less nostalgic for the past. Could hope be the missing link between education and Trump?