Kirk Noden: "Why Do White, Working-Class People Vote Against Their [Economic] Interests? They Don't"

I don't know whether this is right or not, but I learned some stuff from it.
   Anyway, I'll use it for an occasion to make the following points:
[a] Why do white, upper-middle-class Americans vote against their economic interests? Why is voting on the basis of principle weird for the working class and not for the upper-middle-class? Why isn't it condescending to think that it is?
[b] In the Noden piece we see the now-basically-orthodox-on-the-left conflation of immigration with illegal immigration. I don't see any reason to believe that the working class is broadly pissed off about immigration. It seems pissed off about illegal immigration. This is a perfectly rational thing to be pissed off about. They may also be pissed off that many liberals / "progressives" seem to think, absurdly, that any concern with illegal immigration is bizarre and racist. Maybe they're even pissed off about what I'm pissed off about, i.e.: the left's tendency to simply refuse to acknowledge the simple and crucial distinction at the very heart of this discussion between legal and illegal immigration.
[c]  Contra Noden, we are not "at the darkest moment of American history." We are not near the darkest moment of American history. How could anyone who knows anything at all about American history think that we are at anything like one of our darkest moments? We may very well be at one of our least dark moments. I mean, I'm freaked out about Trump, too, and I think for good reasons. I do realize that the risks are great. But let's get some damn perspective.