Where do we go from here?

[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.

 

[superrific]

"Working class" in America has long been a cultural concept -- since the 1960s at least.

 

[Paine]

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

See my posts above and below. It’s a cultural signifier, an identity. It means different things to different people. I take a broad definition because I think that’s most conducive to winning politics.

 

[rodoheel]

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?

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.

 

[mpaer]

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

 

[rodoheel]

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.

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]

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.

 

[superrific]

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

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."

 

[heelinhell]

I have always considered "working class" as primarily an economic descriptor

underclass/impoverished
working class
middle class
upper middle class
upper class

 

[Paine]

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.

I’m not interested in rehashing the arguments in your last paragraph.

People do need to be more precise in their critiques. I’m talking about 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. I think the people that get offended by critiques of this group tell on themselves.

Your second paragraph speaks to the entire point I’ve tried to make. The working class is a large, disparate group of people. You bind this group together by pushing forward policies that will help all of them, like Medicare for All. Universality is the key.

 

[Paine]

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?

I’m talking specifically about working class Latinos. Men and women. They moved away from Democrats in 2024. As did Black men to a lesser degree.

I’ve listened to and read countless interviews with working class voters who voted for Democrats in the past but Trump in 2024. The underlying piece of it all is economic issues. Again, I don’t really care to rehash the argument about this again because I’m made my points and people here can take them or leave them.