Synecdoche:
: a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (such as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (such as society for high society), the species for the genus (such as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (such as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (such as boards for stage) [Merriam-Webster]
Noted, with some wonderment, in “Once and for all: Obama didn’t crush US coal, and Trump can’t save it,” David Roberts, Vox:
In his campaign, Trump seized on that resonance with an odd kind of fervor, using miners as props in political rallies and promising, again and again, to put them back to work. He has managed to make the fate of coal miners a synecdoche for the fate of the white working class writ large.
