Where do we go from here?
- Thread starter rodoheel
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This is all on point.
What makes pundits like Maher so insufferable is how they casually lump the democratic party’s mainstream campaign tactics and the vast majority of democratic voters in with people who wear “queers for Palestine” t-shirts or whatever. Most of us find that stuff very cringey too, believe it or not. To your point though, it has nothing to do with why the democrats lost this election. It’s just a smug grifter trying to pander to conservatives with bottom of the barrel humor.
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How do you define the "elite class"? I personally hate the term "elite" because it seems to have become mostly a pejorative that is synonymous with "liberal" than anything else.
However you define it, I think the perception of the people who consider themselves workers - and not part of the "elite class" - is just as important, if not more so, than "elites'" perception. Let me give you an example. I have a group of clients who own businesses in the home improvement field. Most of them did not go to college, and most worked in the home improvement field in some fashion (selling home improvement products, installing them, or both), or other traditionally blue-collar fields, before starting their current businesses, which each employ dozens of people (either as employees or independent contractors) who work in the office, makes sales calls, or do installations. They have all been very successful with their businesses. They earn anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars per year through their businesses. Most of them make substantially more as business owners than I do as a lawyer.
By any reasonable measure these people are not "working class." They are the business owners who employ the "working class" people. They earn incomes that probably place them in the top 5% or so of Americans; some of them probably in the top 1%. Yet culturally, I can assure you that they very much consider themselves working class, and me, their lawyer, as an "elite" who is not working class. They are mostly or all Trump supporters; some probably very ardent Trump supporters. A couple months ago, one of them said on a call something to the effect of "things are getting bad in this country, man; you lawyers are doing some scary things, and us normal people are just trying to hang on." Mind you that this is a guy who earns millions of dollars a year, lives in probably a $4 million house, and takes 5-6 vacations a year.
To me the point of this example is that "working class" is a cultural identity as much as one that has anything to do with income or whether one is actually a "worker" versus a business owner. Small business owners in the trades or sales or related fields - who as a class tend to be disproportionately conservative, and now MAGA - usually consider themselves to be "normal people" oppressed by the "elites" whether they earn $30k, $150k, or $5 million per year. And they probably consider anyone with an advanced degree - or at least anyone with a liberal arts degree - part of the "elite" whether they're working a low-level job at Google or earning $2 million a year at Skadden Arps. That isn't a perception that has been imposed on them by the "elites" - that is one they have formed and developed on their own, probably influenced to some extent by their media diet.
aGDevil2k
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Ok then what is working class to you? And why is it called that?
superrific
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"Working class" in America has long been a cultural concept -- since the 1960s at least.
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Am I making any more "assumptions" about the working class than they are making about me and people like me? Or any more assumptions than the people who broadly say things like "liberals need to go out and talk to working class people"? Who are the "liberals" that we're talking about here, and why do we assume that none of them know or talk with "working class" people? This is sort of my whole point: you're criticizing liberals, or "elites," for generalizing about working-class people while engaging in, or at least accepting, an analytical framework that generalizes about "liberals" or "elites."
I don't necessarily disagree with your definition of "working class" but I disagree with part of what you say. You say that workers "come from all walks of life and have all manner of views" which is "what makes them a viable electoral coalition." I would counter that the fact that the "working class" is so diverse in their backgrounds and views is what makes them very difficult to define or message to as a "class." The concerns and priorities of college-educated public school teachers and rural farm workers and urban police officers and suburban entry-level white-collar workers are all very different, and in some cases irreconcilably contrary to each other. Everyone wants to feel safe and secure, and everyone wants to have more money and have their money go farther, but the levers to pull are not the same.
I also, again, continue to dispute this idea that Democrats need to "start talking about the working class" as if they don't already. Policies that Democrats have advocated for like student debt relief, and credits for first-time homebuyers, and the expanded child-tax credit, are all indisputably things that help "working-class" people, but because none of them help all working-class people, they were spun as negatives to many voters who see themselves as "working-class." There's no question that Democrats need to find better ways to reach the people who consider themselves "working class" but acting like that's an easy and simple thing to do is just naive, IMO. Unless you think we should be like Trump and lie to voters by blaming it all on immigrants and inflation.
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Good discussions
It certainly is hard to "group " folks into such categories these days . Cost of living in San Fransico-or even Cary-compared to true small town America-makes national salary comparsions almost meaningless. To me clearly Joe Biden's messaging on "good Union jobs' is probably 20 yrs out of date.
Hillary Clinton's no tax increase for those under $400,000 (I guess 395 is middle class) was equally as baffling ...........
Even professions such as teachers just vary widely The avg teacher in Mass makes 93,000 , in a lot of States it is in the 50s.
A National messaging is hard
It certainly is hard to "group " folks into such categories these days . Cost of living in San Fransico-or even Cary-compared to true small town America-makes national salary comparsions almost meaningless. To me clearly Joe Biden's messaging on "good Union jobs' is probably 20 yrs out of date.
Hillary Clinton's no tax increase for those under $400,000 (I guess 395 is middle class) was equally as baffling ...........
Even professions such as teachers just vary widely The avg teacher in Mass makes 93,000 , in a lot of States it is in the 50s.
A National messaging is hard
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OK - so how do you define the "group of people that identify as working class or with workers" who "seemed to have moved away from Democrats in 2024" specifically? We're talking about a subset of working-class people here, so how do you define them and how should Democrats message to them? about "pocket book issues" in a way they haven't already tried?
lawtig02
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So here's a thesis I've been noodling over recently in the age of ascendant right-wing populism. Populism tends to wax when the public loses trust in institutions. But the outcome of populist movements in a democracy is determined by a different form of social trust -- the citizenry's trust in each other. Populism, when institutionalized in a country with high levels of partisanship and low levels of social trust, is almost certain to be authoritarian in nature, and that's true whether the populists are right-leaning or left-leaning. Thus, populism can work well and lead to a highly functional democracy in countries like Norway, with its relatively low levels of partisanship and high levels of social trust. But in our current political environment, populism, whether right or left, is far more likely to lead to authoritarianism than to functional democracy.
In the spirit of political science departments everywhere, I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying it's worth examination.
In the spirit of political science departments everywhere, I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying it's worth examination.
superrific
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1. The phrase actually dates back to the Romans, and the proleteriat. The proletariat was a class of citizens who owned no property and thus could contribute to the military only via labor -- i.e. their contributions were their children joining the army as foot soldiers.
2. Marx took that idea of the proletariat and applied it to factory workers in general. Factory workers, after all, had nothing to sell or trade than their labor. Their material well-being was not found in their access to capital (the other social class) but rather the alienation of their own labor. Since Marx was, shall we say, influential in sociology and economics, his concepts and terminology gained wide currency.
3. In the U.S., the term working class really came into vogue in the 1950s, IIRC. That was in the context of the post-war "let's everybody get along" model of peaceful industrial relations. Unions, companies and the federal government all had vested interests in workers feeling a sense of participation in the industrial system. This birthed the phrase "blue collar worker" -- it must be a conflict-free workplace if the main difference was in shirt color! -- and then that idea was broadened a bit to become "working class."
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I have always considered "working class" as primarily an economic descriptor
underclass/impoverished
working class
middle class
upper middle class
upper class
underclass/impoverished
working class
middle class
upper middle class
upper class
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It's good to know that when you use the terms "liberals" or "elites" you are referring to "the narrow band of people, and it is a narrow band, who have controlled Democratic messaging and campaigns for the last 20 some odd years. A consultant class of, mostly white, college educated liberals who live and work in D.C." But that is very clearly not how those terms are understood or meant by most of the people who use them, in the media or otherwise. And I will note that my first post in this conversation was not referring to critiques of "liberals" made by you specifically, but of those critiques made generally in the media and elsewhere. And I do not read those critiques as being limited only to the people who "control Democratic messaging and campaigns."
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OK so how do we message to those people on economic issues? I really don't think the answer is policy messaging, like Medicare 4 All, which many people probably don't even really see as being about the economy at all (though they should). The most persuasive critique I've heard is that Trump has done a better job connecting emotionally with those working-class voters (Latino or otherwise) than Democrats. Because as many have pointed out, it's not like Trump was offering any generally applicable economic relief policies for the country; just niche (idiotic) things like "no taxes on tips" and claiming that he could reduce everyone's tax burden by increasing tariffs. So I'm not convinced that policy messaging is the answer at all; it's more about emotional appeals and emotional connection.
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I agree with the last part, but the problem is that the main strategy that Republicans have used to "capture the anger" is simply to lie. Lie about what the cause of the problem is (immigrants, government spending) and lie about what the solutions are. Tell people it's someone else's fault, tell them you will punish the people who are to blame. To risk the great cringe-factor of quoting Aaron Sorkin, I still think this speech from the "American President" captures it the best:
"Whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life."
Substitute "illegal immigration" for "President's girlfriend" - and of course ditch anything about "character" which clearly is no longer even close to important - and you basically have the Trump campaign there. It is basically further proof that it's easier to win elections with lies than truth. If people are hurting, they will instinctively look for someone and something to blame. Is there a way to win over those peoples' anger without lying to them and telling them there's some easy solution, some easy scapegoat, for their pain and disaffection?
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It could be Orangeturds best messaging was
"This nation is going to hell-it's becoming a Sh$%hole country. I wil bring change"
It resonated with folks trying to buy a house, racists , farmers, folks whose marriage wasn't great , all kinds of people who hear about Woke. 49% of the people were convinced things are getting bad-for many different reasons most of which were as emotional as "factual"
"This nation is going to hell-it's becoming a Sh$%hole country. I wil bring change"
It resonated with folks trying to buy a house, racists , farmers, folks whose marriage wasn't great , all kinds of people who hear about Woke. 49% of the people were convinced things are getting bad-for many different reasons most of which were as emotional as "factual"
superrific
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1. Right on, brother. Now we're talking. I'd suggest that we find a better term than "wrong identity" but conceptually you're right. This is why all the trans messaging is effective, even though it affects peoples' lives not at all. It's about identity, and yes, Dems have become seen as champions of identities other than working class (especially white working class). I would disagree that Dems "wrapped themselves" in this state of affairs.
Daniel Bell's "Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism", published in the early 70s, was one of the first books to recognize the consequences of religion and traditionalism among the working classes. Class struggle had been disrupted, argued Bell, by the inability of American workers to establish solidarity because of racial divisions. The supposed vanguard of the new society was actually conservative and mostly wanted to live where black people didn't.
Add gender and sexuality into that mix and we have today's situation. This wasn't something that "liberals" or "neoliberals" or "Democrats" did, except in the sense that liberals have emphasized racial and social tolerance and inclusion for generations. The right was working to split minorities and labor, and AM talk radio was their secret weapon. It's really hard to do justice for groups that don't like each other, or at least when one group doesn't like the other group.
To the extent that Democrats fucked up, it was in not taking Rush Limbaugh seriously. And the reason they didn't take him seriously was that he seemed so stuck in the past. Video was the new thing. AM was an ancient, outmoded technology. Rush was just some backwater hick from Missouri (which he was). But what Dems didn't realize was the power of the delivery truck radio, so to speak. Radios in workplaces created a captive audience, and it was thus that the modern, toxic "white working class" conservative political identity was born.
2. You're right that working class is an identity and that's what is fueling Trumpism. It's a powerful identity. But it's also a culturally conservative one -- especially when it comes to gender and sexuality issues, to say nothing of race (an ancient divide-and-conquer strategy that remains potent today). So it's a real challenge to bring that identity within our tent.
This is why I've been favoring religion-based appeals. "Christian" (or any religious identity) is as powerful an identity as working-class and in many ways, more so. And I think it's more promising because it's expressly universalist. The problem with class politics is that they are inherently, by definition, divisive. If you go back to Marx, the "struggle" part of "class struggle" has always been necessary and foundational. In a simple economy and a simple society, that might not be bad, where the heroes and villains are clearly identifiable. But it has proven untenable for liberals to tell workers, "we are organized against those people as our enemies" without creating a conceptual permission structure for them to see other people -- i.e. black people, gay people, etc. -- as villains in somewhat different stories. We basically want class politics to divide people in a certain way and it just doesn't work like that.
Last week we were talking about the need for a new villain, and here too Christianity helps because Christianity has always employed the language of battling against sin rather than sinners. I know, hating the sin and loving the sinner is mostly bullshit, but I'm talking about the language and rhetoric. It's sort of weird for a union leader to stand up and say, "our enemy is cruelty and the hardening of hearts," but those ideas have been emanating from the pulpit for generations.
Our new enemies should be Divisiveness, Cruelty, and Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, after all, has long been a religious concept. I've argued that MAGA world has a different view of hypocrisy than educated liberals. We see hypocrisy in terms of vice; it signals inauthenticity, inconsistency and lack of intellectual rigor. They see hypocrisy in terms of privilege, which has a sound basis in sociology, and want it. So we need to get back to the religious meaning of the term and attack that mindset that MAGA has so readily adopted about rules for thee. Jesus actually talked a fair bit about hypocrisy, right?
superrific
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Right.
I will continue to oppose intertwining religion and politics. It's a pernicious habit and is a danger to both parts. I want very much, instead, for religion to claim its separate important role in society defending it against false prophets. In a more perfect world, outsiders would be unneeded, unwanted and improper, none of which is true on the right. We don't have and I don't want us as a political party to have any standing in this.
