Also… results of the run-off yesterday…
12 Likes
Maverick-y appeal.
2 Likes
8 Likes
10 Likes
10 Likes
For someone who is looking to break down stereotypes of the white working class (which we should of course), she seems to be tossing an awful lot of it at the “coastal educated elites” in that article… 
As someone who is now part of that class, you’d think she had a more nuanced view of it.
I do ultimately agree that we need to tell everyone in the working class that they are valued, and that that INCLUDES the people with college degrees (the coastal progressive elite) who are also now pretty much working class.
13 Likes
OMG, that’s so much horseshit. Not that there isn’t a divide, but rather that progressives dismiss the “settled” ones. FFS, that is the group that should be embracing progressives the most. How did they get those “good” jobs? Unions. How did they (and their kids) gain upward mobility? Free or highly subsidized public universities. They work hard? Great, get in fucking line. What they, their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles have enjoyed is under dire threat, and is already mostly gone, and it’s not progressives who have taken it or are taking it. It’s the GOP, all day long.
They need to wake up and realize that, and put away their bigotry to look at reality. If they keep believing the right’s lies, they’ll find themselves on Niemoller’s poem, and not near the bottom at that.
13 Likes
There’s that too. From the time Trump got elected, almost every single news outlet has been falling all over themselves to figure out WHY white people worked for trump.
13 Likes
I should probably have typed something instead of just providing the link, but the phone rang so I sent it off.
I can’t stand Vance – I think he negatively stereotypes ‘hillbillies’ and doesn’t respect them, despite coming from that culture himself – and this seems like the pot calling the kettle black, because she’s basically doing the same thing.
It is true that the Democratic party has to actively bring working class people back into the fold instead of ignoring them, absolutely.
However, it seems to always be Republican or Republican-leaning people who talk about coastal elites not respecting people who didn’t go to college. I’ve never heard a Democrat say anything like that. And I’ve heard Republican voters tell ME to my face how I supposedly fit this elite stereotype too, which is just stupid. So the real issue is how to get working class people to recognize that these whispers are lies meant to trick them instead of the truth. But after 40 years of these lies, it’s amazing we all don’t believe them at this point. So how do we help people see they’re looking at shadows on a cave wall?
13 Likes
I honestly don’t know. It’s exhausting and this shit feels like we’re all being gaslit on a constant basis.
11 Likes
I was kinda confused by this, since that income bracket seemed rather high to me to describe the working class:
It was folks earning $50,000 to $99,000, those who depending on region and family size might be considered settled working class, who preferred Trump by the greatest margin of all income brackets — 50 percent to 46 percent
But reading on I realized that what she calls the settled working class I would call the lower middle class. I don’t think it is wise to define class through income (anymore). There are a lot of people that went to university who earn less.
Exactly
8 Likes
One thing to bear in mind as well when talking about income/class in the US. There are three main things that make people poor in the States: Housing, Healthcare, and College Debt. There are a lot of people here with relatively high income who live paycheck to paycheck and are one crisis away from being homeless. Most of the middle class is in that category. But it also shows why disdain for “coastal elites” from “settled” white working class is so misguided. Most of those “coastal elites” are facing more hardship than they are, because of more expensive housing and crushing college debt.
12 Likes
It’s underselling who was responsible for increasing that divide, and the benefit$ gained by pols and corporations in making it worse. Sometimes, the GOP rhetoric gives me flashbacks to things first heard in the schoolyard like, “They think they’re better than you.” Othering education and knowledge helps keep the masses poor and more easily led.
I get the feeling that was more about denial and sowing confusion, though. Greed and power are driving forces for lots of folks. Some enjoy getting those things at someone else’s expense, others will sacrifice their beliefs and values for it, and those in control of the funds or positions of influence know how to cater to both.
It would be great if progressives could reduce that divide with guaranteed basic income. That way, everyone would be receiving assistance, people who want to work for more could do so, and those who want to demonize others would have fewer targets.
9 Likes
Bolded that last part, because it’s so true. As @DukeTrout also pointed out further down. Education doesn’t guarantee a good living, but it does guarantee starting out one’s working career with a high-level debt as if owning a house, with no guarantee you’ll ever be able to afford a house.
Exactly.
And, we’re trying to fight that for ourselves while also trying to convince others they’re being gaslit as well.
Earn less: absolutely. But I’d call that the solid middle class. I mean, that’s a lot more money that the average worker outside of major urban areas.
Yes!
But to your example of high salary while living paycheck to paycheck, my conservative (small ‘c’) mindset as a Boomer will insist on distinguishing between people who need to live in a highly expensive area – for example, Chicago finally dropped the requirement that public school teachers live inside city limits when it was proven that a teacher’s salary literally could not afford the bare minimum of 2/3BR-1BA apartment (to say nothing of a house) anywhere within the city – versus people who are so caught up in external displays of wealth that any time they get a raise they also get a more expensive car and home (etc.) so their monthly loan/lease payments increase as well.
Because really, that’s the part of ‘America’ that’s worth getting back to. Reagan was the start of a much more downward slope on so many things, including the flaunting of wealth by people who at the time didn’t have crushing student debt or often even any higher education at all, but who found themselves in industries that became very lucrative very quickly: the financial industry being the prime example.
At this point, we have people at both ends of the financial spectrum unable to build a cushion to ride out life’s uncertainties, and the two positions are linked. We need the ones who are in that position DESPITE being careful about their lifestyle choices to understand how the wealth-flaunters put them in that position and are working hard to keep them there.
If the Democrats showed respect for old-fashioned concepts like duty and hard work, I think it could help break that link.
But yeah, I know that’s the Boomer in me talking.
Totally agree.
It’s what skillful con men do.
Because (as you know) othering education is a great way to keep non-privileged people from being able to rise up.
I’m not the biggest fan of Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s mayor, but I can see how she’s had to deal with the local version of what was done to Obama in the White House: the police especially, but also privileged white movers-and-shakers have undermined her publicly (and I assume we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg) to make sure that she looks incompetent. Can’t have people seeing a Black person rise to a position of authority and actually do a good job, now can we? And that’s what education can do, for those not born into the failing-upward pipeline.
8 Likes
“It’s unclear why the Make America Great Again PAC still needed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of rent in 2021, given that the election took place in 2020.“
11 Likes
11 Likes
Physicians are often seen as the paragon of country club elites. We currently start practice carrying upwards of $300k in student debt. There is a reason there is a crisis in primary care. You carry that kind of debt, you cannot take a job starting at $120k. Even the specialists are paycheck to paycheck for their first years. Unless you come from money, you are not financially secure tor a very long time.
17 Likes
11 Likes
13 Likes
