Where do we go from here?

[uncjhodges]

“‘Who’s the one doing the dividing here?’ Mr. Osborn asked in an interview on Monday. ‘I think it’s the people who are laughing all the way to the bank while us common folk live paycheck to paycheck.’

…Mainly, though, his biggest calling card was his genuine working-class identity and a penchant for listening. It wasn’t a particularly substantive campaign — he still struggles to articulate the policies that distinguished him from Republicans and Democrats — but it was one that avoided the impression that many Democrats leave, that in appealing to working-class voters, they talk down to them.”

To be fair, he probably avoided that impression just by running as an independent and not a democrat

 

[aGDevil2k]

The term working class has always bugged me

 

[Paine]

To be fair, he probably avoided that impression just by running as an independent and not a democrat

If that’s what you have to do to compete in these stages, then that’s what you have to do.

 

[Paine]

The term working class has always bugged me

Mind explaining a bit?

 

[aGDevil2k]

Mind explaining a bit?

It implies white collar folks don't work

 

[uncjhodges]

It implies white collar folks don't work

It also, to me, just reinforces the notion that WWC in the midwest/south are the real americans

 

[UNCatTech]

The term working class has always bugged me

Me too.

I don't like that it seems to imply that those who are not performing physical labor for an hourly rate as somehow not working. We pretty much all have to work, so the separation of people by the term doesn't make sense to me.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

Mind explaining a bit?

Probably a complaint about how it’s used almost exclusively for non-college educated, blue collar folks. It implies doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, accountants, middle managers, etc. don’t work for a living.

 

[Paine]

It implies white collar folks don't work

Not necessarily. It allows people to map themselves onto the notion of what a worker is. I’m a white collar worker but still consider myself working class because of the kind of money I make. Working class isn’t just middle-aged white pipe fitters.

 

[rodoheel]

With the whole "working class" thing, I will just add that I think that one tough thing for some educated liberals is that we're constantly criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding working-class folks but working-class folks are never criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding us. I have heard so much vitriol from "working-class" people about urban "elites" (by which they generally appear to mean people with advanced degrees, or in some cases pretty much any college degree). They demean our education, and education generally, as brainwashing and propaganda. They call our values "woke" and "virtue signaling." They call their own small towns the "real" America and demean the jobs we do as not real or valuable because they don't involve physically growing food or building things or manufacturing a product.

I don't mean for this to be some sad "woe is me" liberal rant. I'm not suggesting that I or people like me are victimized or downtrodden or whatever. It is just frustrating to be constantly told that it is our fault for not engaging with this other group of people when that group of people is just as responsible for not engaging with us. Especially when I'm confident that the average educated liberal has done more to *try* to understand working-class people (whether in a misguided fashion or not) than the other way around.

 

[rodoheel]

Not necessarily. It allows people to map themselves onto the notion of what a worker is. I’m a white collar worker but still consider myself working class because of the kind of money I make. Working class isn’t just middle-aged white pipe fitters.

You might consider yourself "working class," and you may even be correct in doing so, but I suspect the pipe fitters and the railroad workers and the linemen and the firefighters think otherwise. IMO "working class" these days almost always connotes blue-collar jobs, not white-collar jobs, though in our developed economy there's obviously a very blurry line between the two.

 

[Paine]

You might consider yourself "working class," and you may even be correct in doing so, but I suspect the pipe fitters and the railroad workers and the linemen and the firefighters think otherwise. IMO "working class" these days almost always connotes blue-collar jobs, not white-collar jobs, though in our developed economy there's obviously a very blurry line between the two.

You’re obviously right. That’s why more work needs to be done to create a message that ties people together as workers. A lot of this is driven by the elite class’ own notions of what is means to be a worker. That is, a white blue collar guy from the Midwest.

 

[Wolfslayer]

I'm white working class. Managing 79 15 year olds is like herding cats. After 5 hours of my 3 World History classes, I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. I love them and wouldn't want to do anything else but goddamn it is work for $58,000 a year. I know plenty of high school educated tradesmen that make two to three times that and don't work as hard.

 

[Paine]

I'm white working class. Managing 79 15 year olds is like herding cats. After 5 hours of my 3 World History classes, I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. I love them and wouldn't want to do anything else but goddamn it is work for $58,000 a year. I know plenty of high school educated tradesmen that make two to three times that and don't work as hard.

Yes, you are working class and should be included in anyone’s definition of what it means to be working class.

Nurses, teachers, all working class. This is what I, and other leftists, mean when we talk about the working class and the Democrats having a problem messaging to them. I guess a lot of liberals think I just mean we have a white working class men in the trades problem when I say “working class.”

 

[finesse]

I'm not going to engage in this because my experiences aren't completely pertinent. I do find some of these assumptions amusing ,though.

 

[Peppers49]

Right, that’s why his stance is disagreeable to me: the Democratic presidential ticket actually did NOT focus on identity politics at all: never once mentioned the transgender issue, never once mentioned Harris being the first female president, never once mentioned Harris being the first Black woman president, etc. And “identity politics” certainly did not prevent Democratic candidates from doing really well across the country. I will totally buy the notion that Democrats as a whole have focused too much on identity politics over the last decade or so- I will not, however, buy the notion that it was identity politics that lost them this election, considering 1. The presidential ticket did not engage in such, 2. Democrats down ballot did very well, especially in swing states, and 3. The Republican ticket actively ran an entire campaign predicated upon their own identity politics. It’s why it’s really difficult to take Bill Maher seriously on this, because the real answer as to why the Democrats lost the election is way, way simpler: they were the incumbent party in an anti-incumbent moment worldwide. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, again, I absolutely do detest identity politics. I detest it on both sides of the ideological spectrum. But it isn’t why the Democrats lost this election 49-48.

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.

 

[Paine]

With the whole "working class" thing, I will just add that I think that one tough thing for some educated liberals is that we're constantly criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding working-class folks but working-class folks are never criticized for talking down to and/or not engaging with or understanding us. I have heard so much vitriol from "working-class" people about urban "elites" (by which they generally appear to mean people with advanced degrees, or in some cases pretty much any college degree). They demean our education, and education generally, as brainwashing and propaganda. They call our values "woke" and "virtue signaling." They call their own small towns the "real" America and demean the jobs we do as not real or valuable because they don't involve physically growing food or building things or manufacturing a product.

I don't mean for this to be some sad "woe is me" liberal rant. I'm not suggesting that I or people like me are victimized or downtrodden or whatever. It is just frustrating to be constantly told that it is our fault for not engaging with this other group of people when that group of people is just as responsible for not engaging with us. Especially when I'm confident that the average educated liberal has done more to *try* to understand working-class people (whether in a misguided fashion or not) than the other way around.

I think you’re making a ton of assumptions here about working class people. Is there a segment of people without a college degree that demean college education and big cities? Sure. There are also a ton of working class people who have college degrees, who live in cities, and work in education.

Part of this issue that liberals have messaging to workers is making a ton of assumptions about them and what they value. In truth, they come from all walks of life and have all manner of views. That’s what makes them a viable electoral coalition. We don’t have an issue messaging to highly educated white liberals.

If Democrats start talking about the working class, are a ton of white college educated liberals going to start voting for Republicans?

 

[rodoheel]

You’re obviously right. That’s why more work needs to be done to create a message that ties people together as workers. A lot of this is driven by the elite class’ own notions of what is means to be a worker. That is, a white blue collar guy from the Midwest.

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]

Not necessarily. It allows people to map themselves onto the notion of what a worker is. I’m a white collar worker but still consider myself working class because of the kind of money I make. Working class isn’t just middle-aged white pipe fitters.

Ok then what is working class to you? And why is it called that?

 

[Paine]

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.

By elite, I mean people in the 1%. I definitely don’t mean liberals, but there are a lot of liberals in that 1%.

You’re right, working class is a cultural signifier. An identity, if you will. The petit bourgeois “small business owner” that you talk about has an identity tied up in these notions. Even still, this type of person has been the backbone of the Republican Party for a while, so these aren’t really the types of people I think Democrats need to focus on winning back (since they weren’t really “there” to begin with.)

If Democratic messaging focusing on working class voters and pocket book issues brings some of these guys along, that’s gravy. The messaging is really targeted at another group of people that identify as working class or with workers. This is the same group of people who seemed to have moved away from Democrats in 2024.