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Cultural and Political Diversity in the White Working-Class
http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2020/11/09/cultural-and-political-diversity-in-the-white-working-class/Date Written: 2020-11-09 Publisher: Working Class Perspectives Year Published: 2020 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24745 Explores American politics and voter trends and challenges the idea that highly educated people are the norm and the ideal, whereas poorly educated whites are ignorant and deplorable, standing in the way of positive change the educated are trying to bring. Abstract: - Excerpt: Brownstein mistakenly meshes cultural transformations, "growing diversity in race, religion, and sexual orientation [and] evolving roles for women" with economic ones "the move from an industrial economy to one grounded in the Information Age." In this formulation if you want to restore some important aspects of the Industrial Age, like 2% annual increases in real wages for three decades, strong unions, and steeply progressive taxes then you also resist growing diversity and evolving roles for women. It's true that many white men, with and without bachelor's degrees, rage against all three transformations. But there is no logical connection between cultural reactionaries and economic ones. A person can be culturally deplorable and economically progressive at the same time, as much survey research has shown. Or they can resist diversity but be open to and in fact, looking for the government to dramatically improve their economic circumstances. And that means that Democrats should make a renewed effort to convince workers of all skin tones to look more closely at their economic program. The one Biden ran on is good enough. It didn't get much attention in the media, nor did Biden emphasize it enough. Yet the economic program Biden ran on is potentially transformative at the scale he proposed especially trade and industrial policies focused on making more things in-country, a massive infrastructure investment that creates millions of jobs, and a comprehensive enhancement of the care economy for children, elders, and the workers who care for them, all paid for with increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy. If enacted, this program will disproportionately benefit people of color, but the largest group of beneficiaries will be whites without bachelor's degrees. Subject Headings |