8 ms·

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

154 points by riqbal 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
douche 10y ago
This is the best explanation of the psyche of the white working class I have seen on here yet. Every point in here rings true to me, thinking about the way I grew up and the people I knew, and still know back home in a dying blue-collar resource-extraction and manufacturing economy. > Understand That Working Class Means Middle Class, Not Poor > Understand Working-Class Resentment of the Poor > Understand How Class Divisions Have Translated into Geography > If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center > Avoid the Temptation to Write Off Blue-Collar Resentment as Racism And then this is the real kicker, to me: > One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that “professional people were generally suspect” and that managers are college kids “who don’t know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job,”
- scarface74 10y ago
  I never thought about the "working class resents professionals but not the rich". But looking back, I've gotten a lot more snide remarks when people find out that I live in the affluent 'burbs "without doing a hard days work" than I do about being Black. All the while admiring Trump....
- schoen 10y ago
  The article didn't explicitly say so, but this is counterposed by urban liberals who commonly admire professionals (thinking that they possess valuable expertise that should be respected) and are suspicious of the rich (thinking that they likely became rich by exploiting people, by doing something unethical or illegal, or through cronyism). It's not exactly the same cultural contrast, but I remembered this thing that David D. Friedman wrote back in 1995: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_of_Oughts.html http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_o... > I have been arguing politics for a long time. In arguing with people on the left, I find it is very hard to come to an agreement on the assumed facts surrounding the situations we are judging. My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee to be was being lazy and living on what he could gather—so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee's labor. But the leftist doesn't like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don't like that hypothetical. I conclude that our moral intuitions are similar enough so that the same assumed facts push both of us in the same direction—and since we want to go in opposite directions we want [to] assume different facts.
x86_64Ubuntu 10y ago
I find it curious that people talk about the "economic uncertainty" as a center piece, but somehow "Blue collar resentment" doesn't seem to manifest itself in the same way with non-whites. As if to say that non-whites are doing better.
- evgen 10y ago
  This article has all of the hallmarks of something cranked out as fast as possible to ride the WTF wave, with little to show and mostly a collection of anecdote and refs to the work of others. As you note, non-whites are invisible (apparently they are not "working class") as well as women and really anyone who is not white male with resentment issues.
  - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
    I don't agree with everything in the article but it's angle is obviously trying to figure out the reason for Trump's popularity with "white non-college educated males".
    - evgen 10y ago
      I don't think anyone, anywhere at all questioned his appeal to "white resentment" for the past year. It has been a given. As for why he has this appeal, it is not much different than prior Republican appeal for this same demographic; Republican policies are manifestly bad for this group and yet they have continued to vote in a counter-productive manner since the 80s. There is nothing new to figure out here and this paper presents rehashed arguments cloaked in personal anecdote plumped up with vague references to other people's work and then presents the whole thing as though the author was making some sort of profound discovery.
      - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
        I was specifically replying to your "non-whites are invisible" remark. Just because this article clearly concentrates on the white non-college educated demographic that doesn't make non-whites "invisible".
dave_abq 10y ago
This is Brilliant. The Clintons did a good job in the mid 90s bridging this gap, but when you are in the middle you get shot at from both sides. The recent progressive coalition tended to not recognize a middle.
chillingeffect 10y ago
Article focuses way too much on gender, not enough on economics. Smug style in American Liberalism is way more comprehensive: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  I'm only half way through this article but it strikes me as kinda ... wait for it ... smug, no?
aclimatt 10y ago
This is an excellent article. It opens up the minds of people who many on the coasts have struggled to empathize with in light of Tuesday. In talking about economic policies, and free trade deals that supposedly shipped jobs off to China, I wish the article (and more importantly politicans) would emphasize the importance of technology being the driver behind manufacturing job loss. It's only a matter of time before robots replace most manufacturing jobs. The only reason they haven't full-scale yet is that wages in China are still too low to make it cost effective (but that's changing). Otto just delivered the first self-driving truck shipment. In a few short years, the most common job in what was it, 30 or so states? It'll be all but gone. The article hit the nail on the head with having working class economic policy being front and center on the campaign, not bathrooms. But a tariff on Chinese exports ain't it. Nobody is bringing steel back to Youngstown, and though Clinton touched on this a little bit (the renewable energy jobs for example), creating new jobs that are actually here to stay for a while -- whatever they may be (while unfortunately not seeming elite and professional) -- is the only message the Democrats can deliver if they want to win office again.
- throwaway475278 10y ago
  I think it's somewhat helpful to take the author's angle to "raise awareness", but the root problem is still education. If I'm starving to death in a wheat field, teach me to make bread. Retraining programs and better k-12 are the solution, not assuaging a bunch of literally too-stupid-to-help-themselves white dudes. I get that they don't like being too stupid to help themselves, it sucks. But cheap access to a community college and some kind of "displaced worker" program that helps keep families fed while someone gets a degree would be so much more beneficial than trying to reboot a bunch of dying industries.
  - zepto 10y ago
    Retraining for what?
    - chongli 10y ago
      I'm not who you're replying to but I'll interject anyway: Retraining for millions of jobs in the skilled trades. This is the program championed by Mike Rowe [0]. It also happens to dovetail perfectly with Trump's so-called $1 Trillion infrastructure plan. If he actually puts his money where his mouth is, he stands a good chance of being the most popular Republican president in history (while simultaneously being the most hated). [0] http://profoundlydisconnected.com/ http://profoundlydisconnected.com/
misterbowfinger 10y ago
> If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center She means jobs for the white working-class, not economics. Every economist values free-trade. Consumers will get higher quality products at lower prices if we pass more free-trade deals. Sure, we can create price floors and impose high tariffs on imported goods to increase jobs for the white working-class. We'll just have to raise taxes for the people who actually earn their jobs. This is a ludicrous argument. We would never say something similar to create jobs for under-represented minorities. We need alternatives to Silicon Valley in the rural areas of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Stanford graduates have to think about moving to Iowa. If we can create great companies elsewhere, the white working-class would start to see different opportunities. Once their financial situation isn't at risk, they'll start to engage in politics in a more meaningful way - in a way where we'll actually talk about who is fit to be President and not the person who's just saying all the right buzzwords.
- hilop 10y ago
  Not every economist ignores the inequality costs if labor being forced to race to the bottom
  - damptowel 10y ago
    Not to mention second order effects undercutting first order ones.
byuu 10y ago
> Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. I fully understand why transgender bathrooms are important, but I also understand why progressives’ obsession with prioritizing cultural issues infuriates many Americans whose chief concerns are economic. I'm sorry, but this cuts both ways. The Republican primary issues are social as well. Is the author forgetting that GWB won in 2004 on the back of marriage discrimination amendments in key battleground states like Ohio to entice Republican voter turnout? I don't believe the shrewd Republican politicians at the top care about social issues anymore than the top Democrats care about reigning in Wall Street. But that is definitely how they energize their base for voter turnout. Meaning, it's what the voters care about. And this was the nastiest election I've seen in my lifetime by far for baiting with all those buzzwords the left is being derided for using now. But if the shoe fits. No, I don't believe all Trump voters are racists, bigots, or xenophobes. But I do believe there is a line in the sand when it comes to respect and dignity for all Americans, and Trump didn't just step over it, he flew his private jet across it. I don't even believe Trump really meant all of what he siad, but he played his base like a fiddle. If social issues aren't what's really important, and it's economic issues that won, then they could have had a sweeping landslide victory by adopting a more inclusive platform that didn't promise to stack the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and Obergefell v Hodges. One that didn't promise to undo all transgender protection executive orders. One that didn't suggest a registry for all Muslims and to ban refugees. One that didn't run on building a wall to keep out immigrants. He could have nominated a VP that didn't believe in conversion therapy for gay teens, one that didn't enact the gay version of Jim Crow laws in Indiana. If they had stuck to the economic issues: oppose trade agreements that only benefit the rich, give tax cuts primarily to the working class, provide good-paying infrastructure jobs, etc ... they would have won 'bigly.' I would have loved to vote against Clinton for such an economy-first party. As would most of the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders voters. But I can't do that when these social wedge issues directly affect my own life (he's talking about overturning my marriage) and that of my friends in the transgender community. Basic fairness and equality is much more important to me than my paycheck size. I'm sorry to play this card, but I think it's really easy when white, middle and upper class, cisgendered heterosexuals call for inclusivity and finding common ground with these social regressives. They have no basic rights to fear losing. The worst they're going to suffer is increased pollution (won't affect them in their lifetime anyway); but hey, those tax breaks sound nice, right? I'm not saying their economic concerns are unimportant. But don't ask the victims having their rights stripped away and peeled back to reach out and find common ground with the people trying to take them away. We're essentially being told now, "look, I know the Klan has some bad ideas around African Americans and gays, but what's really important to them are blue collar jobs. So can you please stop calling them racists and bridge the divide, LGBTs and people of color?" -- and my answer is no, sorry. I can't do that.
Animats 10y ago
"If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous." Steel isn't coming back to Youngstown because the steel industry moved South to break the unions. The industry built new plants, and automated. US steel production is about where it was in the 1980s. But it's gone from downtown Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Bethlehem. (Still at Gary, though.) [1] The growth has been south of the Mason-Dixon line. Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina now have big steel plants. Wages are much lower than in the union days. Plants employ far fewer people. There's much more steel recycling, too; most US steel plants run on scrap now, not iron ore. About 40% of steel is recycled. US steel imports are about 30% of US internal sales, and mostly from Canada, Brazil, and South Korea. China isn't even in the top five. Trade restrictions are holding China down there. The US exports steel, but less than it imports. Stronger import restrictions would either hurt Canada or be ineffective. Appliances, though... The US could have an effective push to make more appliances of all types in the US. Some US appliance makers that used to outsource have already moved production back to the US. But anybody who builds a new appliance plant is going to make it very automated. Only old plants are labor-intensive. [1] https://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Public%20Policy/Member%20Map/NorthAmerica-Map2013/SteelPlant_NorthAmerica_AISI_version_June252013.pdf https://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Public%20Policy/Mem...
lambdasquirrel 10y ago
Oh please. As someone who grew up poor, whose parents had to climb up and deal with racism. I'm just going to spit on this when they say, this isn't about racism. Look, everyone else had to work differently, and accept things like education, creativity and sensitivity as values. Why does the WWC think it's entitled to keep on going as they are? You like directness? Well I'm just going to say it for what it is.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  They do accept education as a value and just like the parents of the author try to send their children to colleges. Although the skilled tradesman career path can potentially be more lucrative so there's that. Speaking of "sensitivity" - from my experience minorities (blacks, latinos) are actually more conservative/pragmatic and less "sensitive" in general. The only time they play the "sensitive" card is when dealing with whites, appealing to "white guilt" etc when justifying THEIR entitlement.
- dikdik 10y ago
  "and accept things like education" um, what? Boomers pummeled education into their children as an essential part of success. Now they get to witness their children with a lower standard of living despite "investing" many more years and dollars than they had to. If I had kids, I would be feeling pretty ashamed if they were being setup to have a crappier existence and shittier jobs that "require" a greater investment in education.
Tempest1981 10y ago
Key points (for the TL;DR): - The White Working Class (WWC) liked Trump - Manly dignity is a big deal for most men. Trump promises to deliver it. - Brookings Institution argues that men must resign themselves to working in “pink collar jobs” — those known by the acronym HEAL, for health, education, administration and literacy. Not manly - WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. - WWC men want stable, full-time jobs (not minimum wage) that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree. Trump promises that. - Obamacare delivered health care to 20 million people. WWC see it as just another program that taxed the middle class to help the poor - Class conflict now closely tracks the urban-rural divide. In the huge red plains between the thin blue coasts, shockingly high numbers of working-class men are unemployed or on disability, fueling opioid use - Free-trade deals bring net positive GDP gains, but overlook the blue-collar workers who lost work as jobs left for Mexico or Vietnam - Massive funding is needed for community college programs linked with local businesses to train workers for well-paying new economy jobs. Clinton mentioned this but didn't stress it - Don't write off WWC anger as nothing more than racism. It's more class cluelessness - If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >- Manly dignity is a big deal for most men. Trump promises to deliver it. And if robots do the "manly" work?
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  Exit polls suggest that those worried about economic topics voted Clinton. Those that worried about immigration and terrorism voted Trump. It doesn't seem to be talked about much, but something that stuck out for me in the election coverage was that Islam was the connecting thread eg Clinton got donations from Saudi Arabia which is suspect because they are Islamic, Clinton wants to support Syrian refugees which is bad because they're Islamic, Clinton has an aide called Huma Abedin which is bad because Islam and so on. Lots of people say Obama got elected so America can't be racist, but even then the big slur thrown at him was that he was a secret Muslim, working in concert with ISIS to undermine the USA. I wouldn't rule out this as a decisive factor. Clinton (and Bernie for that matter) wouldn't stoop to the levels required to benefit from this xenophobia. Trump lied about banning Muslims completely (which presumably even he knows would be ridiculous and unworkable).
kpennell 10y ago
This article gave me (Bay Area dude) some great perspective on what motivated people to vote Trump.
knz 10y ago
There are some interesting points being made in the article but some of it is crap. > Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables. Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her class can treat working-class men with disrespect. Look at how she condescends to Trump as unfit to hold the office of the presidency and dismisses his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic. Isn't this just the same attitude applied towards Clinton/liberals? Wearing carhartts could be dorky, Trump not releasing his tax returns could be arrogant, listen to conservative media for a while and you'll hear similar insults about the intelligence and sexism of liberals. > Trump’s blunt talk taps into another blue-collar value: straight talk. “Directness is a working-class norm,”...Of course Trump appeals. Clinton’s clunky admission that she talks one way in public and another in private? Further proof she’s a two-faced phony. Straight talk? Or blatant lies that anyone with critical thinking can see through - Trump has already walked back from of some of his proposals. Trump is also an absolute master of doublespeak and using it to say outrageous things - "Those second amendment folks could do something about it" etc. Plenty of business people are also very direct. Aren't people from places like Chicago and New York even known for being direct/blunt? > At a deeper level, both parties need an economic program that can deliver middle-class jobs. Republicans have one: Unleash American business. Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. I fully understand why transgender bathrooms are important, but I also understand why progressives’ obsession with prioritizing cultural issues infuriates many Americans whose chief concerns are economic. How the hell is healthcare not one of the unnecessary burdens we place on businesses in America? Why does a small business need to worry about providing health insurance to their employees? I work for a medium size company and we have a whole department of people managing health insurance, HSA's, VEBA's, and various health related tax deferment programs. Does any other OECD country have that additional burden?
RCortex 10y ago
Completely ignoring the democratic party's platform as usual. It's starting to look like this "right-wing base" is obsessed with identity, and it's preventing them from actually understanding the other people who want to help them. The rest of us just want everyone to get along and be happy. This article makes it sound like working or middle class people are dumb as shit. My neighbors aren't dumb. They didn't vote though.
- mattthebaker 10y ago
  Hmm, yeah. I'm struggling to understand the difference between the WWC and the poor outside of identity. Is it ideological in the sense that the WWC are people who want to work but can't find work, and they perceive the poor as people unwilling or unable to work.
damptowel 10y ago
So the issue is outdated ethics that no longer apply to the real world? And the solution is to ignore the ethics and somehow fix things? Seems like traditionalism self destructing.

154 points by riqbal 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

This is the best explanation of the psyche of the white working class I have seen on here yet. Every point in here rings true to me, thinking about the way I grew up and the people I knew, and still know back home in a dying blue-collar resource-extraction and manufacturing economy. > Understand That Working Class Means Middle Class, Not Poor > Understand Working-Class Resentment of the Poor > Understand How Class Divisions Have Translated into Geography > If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center > Avoid the Temptation to Write Off Blue-Collar Resentment as Racism And then this is the real kicker, to me: > One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that “professional people were generally suspect” and that managers are college kids “who don’t know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job,”

scarface74 10y ago
I never thought about the "working class resents professionals but not the rich". But looking back, I've gotten a lot more snide remarks when people find out that I live in the affluent 'burbs "without doing a hard days work" than I do about being Black. All the while admiring Trump....
schoen 10y ago
The article didn't explicitly say so, but this is counterposed by urban liberals who commonly admire professionals (thinking that they possess valuable expertise that should be respected) and are suspicious of the rich (thinking that they likely became rich by exploiting people, by doing something unethical or illegal, or through cronyism). It's not exactly the same cultural contrast, but I remembered this thing that David D. Friedman wrote back in 1995: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_of_Oughts.html http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_o... > I have been arguing politics for a long time. In arguing with people on the left, I find it is very hard to come to an agreement on the assumed facts surrounding the situations we are judging. My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee to be was being lazy and living on what he could gather—so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee's labor. But the leftist doesn't like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don't like that hypothetical. I conclude that our moral intuitions are similar enough so that the same assumed facts push both of us in the same direction—and since we want to go in opposite directions we want [to] assume different facts.

x86_64Ubuntu 10y ago

I find it curious that people talk about the "economic uncertainty" as a center piece, but somehow "Blue collar resentment" doesn't seem to manifest itself in the same way with non-whites. As if to say that non-whites are doing better.

evgen 10y ago
This article has all of the hallmarks of something cranked out as fast as possible to ride the WTF wave, with little to show and mostly a collection of anecdote and refs to the work of others. As you note, non-whites are invisible (apparently they are not "working class") as well as women and really anyone who is not white male with resentment issues.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  I don't agree with everything in the article but it's angle is obviously trying to figure out the reason for Trump's popularity with "white non-college educated males".
  - evgen 10y ago
    I don't think anyone, anywhere at all questioned his appeal to "white resentment" for the past year. It has been a given. As for why he has this appeal, it is not much different than prior Republican appeal for this same demographic; Republican policies are manifestly bad for this group and yet they have continued to vote in a counter-productive manner since the 80s. There is nothing new to figure out here and this paper presents rehashed arguments cloaked in personal anecdote plumped up with vague references to other people's work and then presents the whole thing as though the author was making some sort of profound discovery.
    - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
      I was specifically replying to your "non-whites are invisible" remark. Just because this article clearly concentrates on the white non-college educated demographic that doesn't make non-whites "invisible".

dave_abq 10y ago

This is Brilliant. The Clintons did a good job in the mid 90s bridging this gap, but when you are in the middle you get shot at from both sides. The recent progressive coalition tended to not recognize a middle.

chillingeffect 10y ago

Article focuses way too much on gender, not enough on economics. Smug style in American Liberalism is way more comprehensive: http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali...

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
I'm only half way through this article but it strikes me as kinda ... wait for it ... smug, no?

aclimatt 10y ago

This is an excellent article. It opens up the minds of people who many on the coasts have struggled to empathize with in light of Tuesday. In talking about economic policies, and free trade deals that supposedly shipped jobs off to China, I wish the article (and more importantly politicans) would emphasize the importance of technology being the driver behind manufacturing job loss. It's only a matter of time before robots replace most manufacturing jobs. The only reason they haven't full-scale yet is that wages in China are still too low to make it cost effective (but that's changing). Otto just delivered the first self-driving truck shipment. In a few short years, the most common job in what was it, 30 or so states? It'll be all but gone. The article hit the nail on the head with having working class economic policy being front and center on the campaign, not bathrooms. But a tariff on Chinese exports ain't it. Nobody is bringing steel back to Youngstown, and though Clinton touched on this a little bit (the renewable energy jobs for example), creating new jobs that are actually here to stay for a while -- whatever they may be (while unfortunately not seeming elite and professional) -- is the only message the Democrats can deliver if they want to win office again.

throwaway475278 10y ago
I think it's somewhat helpful to take the author's angle to "raise awareness", but the root problem is still education. If I'm starving to death in a wheat field, teach me to make bread. Retraining programs and better k-12 are the solution, not assuaging a bunch of literally too-stupid-to-help-themselves white dudes. I get that they don't like being too stupid to help themselves, it sucks. But cheap access to a community college and some kind of "displaced worker" program that helps keep families fed while someone gets a degree would be so much more beneficial than trying to reboot a bunch of dying industries.
- zepto 10y ago
  Retraining for what?
  - chongli 10y ago
    I'm not who you're replying to but I'll interject anyway: Retraining for millions of jobs in the skilled trades. This is the program championed by Mike Rowe [0]. It also happens to dovetail perfectly with Trump's so-called $1 Trillion infrastructure plan. If he actually puts his money where his mouth is, he stands a good chance of being the most popular Republican president in history (while simultaneously being the most hated). [0] http://profoundlydisconnected.com/ http://profoundlydisconnected.com/

misterbowfinger 10y ago

> If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center She means jobs for the white working-class, not economics. Every economist values free-trade. Consumers will get higher quality products at lower prices if we pass more free-trade deals. Sure, we can create price floors and impose high tariffs on imported goods to increase jobs for the white working-class. We'll just have to raise taxes for the people who actually earn their jobs. This is a ludicrous argument. We would never say something similar to create jobs for under-represented minorities. We need alternatives to Silicon Valley in the rural areas of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Stanford graduates have to think about moving to Iowa. If we can create great companies elsewhere, the white working-class would start to see different opportunities. Once their financial situation isn't at risk, they'll start to engage in politics in a more meaningful way - in a way where we'll actually talk about who is fit to be President and not the person who's just saying all the right buzzwords.

hilop 10y ago
Not every economist ignores the inequality costs if labor being forced to race to the bottom
- damptowel 10y ago
  Not to mention second order effects undercutting first order ones.

byuu 10y ago

> Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. I fully understand why transgender bathrooms are important, but I also understand why progressives’ obsession with prioritizing cultural issues infuriates many Americans whose chief concerns are economic. I'm sorry, but this cuts both ways. The Republican primary issues are social as well. Is the author forgetting that GWB won in 2004 on the back of marriage discrimination amendments in key battleground states like Ohio to entice Republican voter turnout? I don't believe the shrewd Republican politicians at the top care about social issues anymore than the top Democrats care about reigning in Wall Street. But that is definitely how they energize their base for voter turnout. Meaning, it's what the voters care about. And this was the nastiest election I've seen in my lifetime by far for baiting with all those buzzwords the left is being derided for using now. But if the shoe fits. No, I don't believe all Trump voters are racists, bigots, or xenophobes. But I do believe there is a line in the sand when it comes to respect and dignity for all Americans, and Trump didn't just step over it, he flew his private jet across it. I don't even believe Trump really meant all of what he siad, but he played his base like a fiddle. If social issues aren't what's really important, and it's economic issues that won, then they could have had a sweeping landslide victory by adopting a more inclusive platform that didn't promise to stack the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and Obergefell v Hodges. One that didn't promise to undo all transgender protection executive orders. One that didn't suggest a registry for all Muslims and to ban refugees. One that didn't run on building a wall to keep out immigrants. He could have nominated a VP that didn't believe in conversion therapy for gay teens, one that didn't enact the gay version of Jim Crow laws in Indiana. If they had stuck to the economic issues: oppose trade agreements that only benefit the rich, give tax cuts primarily to the working class, provide good-paying infrastructure jobs, etc ... they would have won 'bigly.' I would have loved to vote against Clinton for such an economy-first party. As would most of the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders voters. But I can't do that when these social wedge issues directly affect my own life (he's talking about overturning my marriage) and that of my friends in the transgender community. Basic fairness and equality is much more important to me than my paycheck size. I'm sorry to play this card, but I think it's really easy when white, middle and upper class, cisgendered heterosexuals call for inclusivity and finding common ground with these social regressives. They have no basic rights to fear losing. The worst they're going to suffer is increased pollution (won't affect them in their lifetime anyway); but hey, those tax breaks sound nice, right? I'm not saying their economic concerns are unimportant. But don't ask the victims having their rights stripped away and peeled back to reach out and find common ground with the people trying to take them away. We're essentially being told now, "look, I know the Klan has some bad ideas around African Americans and gays, but what's really important to them are blue collar jobs. So can you please stop calling them racists and bridge the divide, LGBTs and people of color?" -- and my answer is no, sorry. I can't do that.

Animats 10y ago

"If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous." Steel isn't coming back to Youngstown because the steel industry moved South to break the unions. The industry built new plants, and automated. US steel production is about where it was in the 1980s. But it's gone from downtown Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Bethlehem. (Still at Gary, though.) [1] The growth has been south of the Mason-Dixon line. Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina now have big steel plants. Wages are much lower than in the union days. Plants employ far fewer people. There's much more steel recycling, too; most US steel plants run on scrap now, not iron ore. About 40% of steel is recycled. US steel imports are about 30% of US internal sales, and mostly from Canada, Brazil, and South Korea. China isn't even in the top five. Trade restrictions are holding China down there. The US exports steel, but less than it imports. Stronger import restrictions would either hurt Canada or be ineffective. Appliances, though... The US could have an effective push to make more appliances of all types in the US. Some US appliance makers that used to outsource have already moved production back to the US. But anybody who builds a new appliance plant is going to make it very automated. Only old plants are labor-intensive. [1] https://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Public%20Policy/Member%20Map/NorthAmerica-Map2013/SteelPlant_NorthAmerica_AISI_version_June252013.pdf https://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/Public%20Policy/Mem...

lambdasquirrel 10y ago

Oh please. As someone who grew up poor, whose parents had to climb up and deal with racism. I'm just going to spit on this when they say, this isn't about racism. Look, everyone else had to work differently, and accept things like education, creativity and sensitivity as values. Why does the WWC think it's entitled to keep on going as they are? You like directness? Well I'm just going to say it for what it is.

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
They do accept education as a value and just like the parents of the author try to send their children to colleges. Although the skilled tradesman career path can potentially be more lucrative so there's that. Speaking of "sensitivity" - from my experience minorities (blacks, latinos) are actually more conservative/pragmatic and less "sensitive" in general. The only time they play the "sensitive" card is when dealing with whites, appealing to "white guilt" etc when justifying THEIR entitlement.
dikdik 10y ago
"and accept things like education" um, what? Boomers pummeled education into their children as an essential part of success. Now they get to witness their children with a lower standard of living despite "investing" many more years and dollars than they had to. If I had kids, I would be feeling pretty ashamed if they were being setup to have a crappier existence and shittier jobs that "require" a greater investment in education.

Tempest1981 10y ago

Key points (for the TL;DR): - The White Working Class (WWC) liked Trump - Manly dignity is a big deal for most men. Trump promises to deliver it. - Brookings Institution argues that men must resign themselves to working in “pink collar jobs” — those known by the acronym HEAL, for health, education, administration and literacy. Not manly - WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. - WWC men want stable, full-time jobs (not minimum wage) that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree. Trump promises that. - Obamacare delivered health care to 20 million people. WWC see it as just another program that taxed the middle class to help the poor - Class conflict now closely tracks the urban-rural divide. In the huge red plains between the thin blue coasts, shockingly high numbers of working-class men are unemployed or on disability, fueling opioid use - Free-trade deals bring net positive GDP gains, but overlook the blue-collar workers who lost work as jobs left for Mexico or Vietnam - Massive funding is needed for community college programs linked with local businesses to train workers for well-paying new economy jobs. Clinton mentioned this but didn't stress it - Don't write off WWC anger as nothing more than racism. It's more class cluelessness - If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>- Manly dignity is a big deal for most men. Trump promises to deliver it. And if robots do the "manly" work?
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
Exit polls suggest that those worried about economic topics voted Clinton. Those that worried about immigration and terrorism voted Trump. It doesn't seem to be talked about much, but something that stuck out for me in the election coverage was that Islam was the connecting thread eg Clinton got donations from Saudi Arabia which is suspect because they are Islamic, Clinton wants to support Syrian refugees which is bad because they're Islamic, Clinton has an aide called Huma Abedin which is bad because Islam and so on. Lots of people say Obama got elected so America can't be racist, but even then the big slur thrown at him was that he was a secret Muslim, working in concert with ISIS to undermine the USA. I wouldn't rule out this as a decisive factor. Clinton (and Bernie for that matter) wouldn't stoop to the levels required to benefit from this xenophobia. Trump lied about banning Muslims completely (which presumably even he knows would be ridiculous and unworkable).

kpennell 10y ago

This article gave me (Bay Area dude) some great perspective on what motivated people to vote Trump.

knz 10y ago

There are some interesting points being made in the article but some of it is crap. > Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables. Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her class can treat working-class men with disrespect. Look at how she condescends to Trump as unfit to hold the office of the presidency and dismisses his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic. Isn't this just the same attitude applied towards Clinton/liberals? Wearing carhartts could be dorky, Trump not releasing his tax returns could be arrogant, listen to conservative media for a while and you'll hear similar insults about the intelligence and sexism of liberals. > Trump’s blunt talk taps into another blue-collar value: straight talk. “Directness is a working-class norm,”...Of course Trump appeals. Clinton’s clunky admission that she talks one way in public and another in private? Further proof she’s a two-faced phony. Straight talk? Or blatant lies that anyone with critical thinking can see through - Trump has already walked back from of some of his proposals. Trump is also an absolute master of doublespeak and using it to say outrageous things - "Those second amendment folks could do something about it" etc. Plenty of business people are also very direct. Aren't people from places like Chicago and New York even known for being direct/blunt? > At a deeper level, both parties need an economic program that can deliver middle-class jobs. Republicans have one: Unleash American business. Democrats? They remain obsessed with cultural issues. I fully understand why transgender bathrooms are important, but I also understand why progressives’ obsession with prioritizing cultural issues infuriates many Americans whose chief concerns are economic. How the hell is healthcare not one of the unnecessary burdens we place on businesses in America? Why does a small business need to worry about providing health insurance to their employees? I work for a medium size company and we have a whole department of people managing health insurance, HSA's, VEBA's, and various health related tax deferment programs. Does any other OECD country have that additional burden?

RCortex 10y ago

Completely ignoring the democratic party's platform as usual. It's starting to look like this "right-wing base" is obsessed with identity, and it's preventing them from actually understanding the other people who want to help them. The rest of us just want everyone to get along and be happy. This article makes it sound like working or middle class people are dumb as shit. My neighbors aren't dumb. They didn't vote though.

mattthebaker 10y ago
Hmm, yeah. I'm struggling to understand the difference between the WWC and the poor outside of identity. Is it ideological in the sense that the WWC are people who want to work but can't find work, and they perceive the poor as people unwilling or unable to work.

damptowel 10y ago

So the issue is outdated ethics that no longer apply to the real world? And the solution is to ignore the ethics and somehow fix things? Seems like traditionalism self destructing.