It is\u00a0normal\u00a0for\u00a0partisan support\u00a0to reflect demographics. What is unprecedented is the precise way that the US\u00a0population has\u00a0split in this decade. Basically, the Obama\/Clinton coalition is the upper end of the economic scale plus people of color. The Trump coalition is the working class minus people of color.<\/p>\n
College attainment is both a precondition and an indicator of middle-class status in contemporary America. In a poll<\/a> taken between the conventions, Hillary Clinton led college-educated whites by 5 points, but she trailed Trump among whites who don’t have\u00a0college degrees by 39 points: 62% to 23%. That\u00a0gap must have set a record, but it was\u00a0not wildly out of line with other recent results. Peter Beinart has assembled much more evidence for what he calls a “class inversion<\/a>.” Note that\u00a0Clinton also leads\u00a0<\/a>Trump by 16 points among Fortune<\/em> 500 CEOs. In Silicon Valley, she led<\/a> Trump by 64% to 20% in a\u00a0poll last spring. Meanwhile, she leads by huge margins among all racial\/ethnic groups other than Whites.<\/p>\n Chris Arnade reports<\/a> from two parts of metro Cleveland, OH: white working-class Parma and African American Central Cleveland, which is one of the poorest communities in the nation. In Parma, Arnade\u00a0writes,<\/p>\n Trump voters want respect. They want respect for their long hours of work that risks their bodies, for the hands caught in vices, backs wrenched by weights, and knees torn. They want respect because they are doing dangerous work, but their pay has been flat for decades.<\/p>\n They want respect because they haven\u2019t just lost economically, but also socially. When they turn on the TV, they see their way of life being mocked and made fun of as nothing but uneducated white trash.<\/p>\n With Trump, they are finding someone who gives them respect. He talks their language, addresses their concerns<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In Central, “the need for respect, the feeling of being left behind, is [also] well-understood.” But everyone there favors Clinton, and Arnade thinks that’s because “people feel they do have a political voice. They believe the Democrats are working for them, they might not like everything about the party, they might not fully like the results, but the party is respecting their concerns. [The]\u00a0overwhelming political concern I heard had little to do with anything other than electing Hillary, and stopping Trump.”<\/p>\n I think this passage overstates African Americans’ satisfaction with the Democrats. Peniel Joseph describes<\/a>\u00a0“multiple strategic and substantive displays of multiracial unity” inside<\/em> the Democratic National Convention. But “outside the convention hall Black Lives Matter demonstrators begged to differ, protesting the Democratic Party as an entity held corporate hostage to financial institutions whose candidate Hillary Clinton they say backed criminal justice and welfare reform that have had a devastating impact on poor black communities.”\u00a0Jordie Davies writes<\/a>\u00a0that 2016 presents the choice between “a demagogue [Trump] and more of the same complacent, anti-black policies [from Clinton].”<\/p>\n But to the extent that the African American\u00a0voters of Central Cleveland trust the Democratic Party, it may be because they observe Black people wielding actual power within the party. The President is African American. One in four delegates to the DNC was\u00a0Black<\/a>, and more than half were people of color. This is not because the party has given<\/em>\u00a0African Americans anything, but because Black people have won\u00a0elections at all levels from local party officers\u00a0to the presidency. So African Americans are at the table, even if they are often outgunned by wealthier interests and outnumbered.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, if you identify as working class, you will see virtually no one like you wielding\u00a0power\u00a0in\u00a0either party. You may notice\u00a0a few politicians of working-class origins<\/em>, but almost everyone\u00a0who influences\u00a0either party is now a white-collar professional.\u00a0Michael Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO’s political director, says<\/a>, \u201cWe would argue that most of the political class comes from the same background whether it is Democrats or Republicans and that all politicians lack a kind of authenticity with working-class voters.”<\/p>\n Of course, union staff are also professionals, but they owe their jobs to rank-and-file members. Unfortunately, their\u00a0place is increasingly marginal. Although five union leaders spoke\u00a0on the first day\u00a0of the DNC, none spoke in\u00a0prime time, and two of them represented college-educated public employees.\u00a0It would be easy to overlook industrial unions in\u00a0the Democratic Party coalition, and this is why:<\/p>\n Private sector workers simply aren’t in unions anymore. Andrade begins his depiction of white\u00a0working class Parma with the key point. It is “defined by auto factories: massive edifices to another era that now sit mostly idle. Scattered throughout are union halls, like UAW Local 1005, which is mostly empty, holding only a few cars.” I think the UAW’s empty parking lot is an image of political powerlessness; and powerlessness breeds Trumpism.<\/p>\n The new demographic split\u00a0influences\u00a0cultural institutions as well politics.\u00a0For instance, Tufts University has always had, and must have, conservative<\/em> students and faculty. It should\u00a0be a place for productive debate between liberals and conservatives (and others). But I have not personally encountered anyone here who supports Trump. That makes sense, because\u00a0Tufts is a college;\u00a0its purpose is to produce college graduates. We admit students from working-class homes, but we strive to prepare\u00a0them all for adulthood in the\u00a0middle class. That’s what they pay us for. We also strive–albeit imperfectly–for racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. Consequently,\u00a0everyone<\/em> who graduates from Tufts\u00a0enters the demographic categories that are currently lined up behind\u00a0Clinton.<\/p>\n The need for organizing<\/em><\/p>\n The New Deal\/Great Society coalition–always highly imperfect, unequal, and fractious–consisted of\u00a0the working class (of all races\/ethnicities) plus wealthier\u00a0people who saw themselves as minorities, including religious minorities. In settings like national political campaigns, the various elements of the progressive coalition had to learn from and negotiate with each other. Together, they achieved\u00a0some progress.<\/p>\n Today’s Democrats are typically stronger than Republicans on civil rights, especially rhetorically and in cases when\u00a0addressing injustice won’t\u00a0cost upper-income whites anything. For instance, as a white man\u00a0with a PhD,\u00a0I gain nothing from unjust policing or mass incarceration; I’d be better off without both. Racial diversity also improves my life, as long as I retain\u00a0my own place in my job and neighborhood. Further, Democrats are prone\u00a0to fund education, partly because they endorse\u00a0principles (like equality and freedom) that education may advance; partly because today’s Democrats are often\u00a0meritocrats and technocrats who treat\u00a0success in school as an indicator of a good life; and partly because their coalition includes teachers and professors, who are paid to educate.<\/p>\n But Democrats won’t\u00a0make more than marginal commitments to addressing the profound destruction of de-industrialization, rising deference to wealth and capital, or\u00a0the\u00a0economic situation of working class people (trends summarized here<\/a>). That is because the working class\u00a0is\u00a0outnumbered in the Democratic\u00a0coalition. Meanwhile, the Trump coalition could<\/em> support policies that benefited the working class–note his embrace of a higher\u00a0minimum wage and his opposition to trade liberalization–but since his\u00a0coalition has been built to\u00a0exclude people of color, it is terrible on civil rights and diversity issues. And Trump offers no real solutions even for working-class white people.<\/p>\n Democrats should enact\u00a0policies for\u00a0working class communities suffering from declining real income, falling\u00a0life-expectancy, opioid addiction, and fragmenting families.\u00a0At this moment, I think their policies are much better<\/a> than the Republicans’, and it’s worth emphasizing that contrast.\u00a0But beneath policy is politics, and there is no reason to believe that a coalition dependent on the upper<\/em> class will consistently support policies that make a real difference to people in the lower<\/em> class, especially when a majority of the lower class is voting\u00a0for the other party. I’ve shown (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) that today’s\u00a0most educated Americans are liberal but not egalitarian. The Democrats can obtain a majority coalition by offering\u00a0neoliberalism plus diversity, and that is the likely long-term outcome.<\/p>\n An even deeper problem is that you cannot confer respect on someone else by giving him a better deal. So even if the Democrats enacted stronger\u00a0policies to\u00a0benefit the working class–infrastructure spending<\/a> would be a good example–that\u00a0wouldn’t\u00a0make working-class people feel that they had a genuine seat at the table. They must design and enact policies to feel empowered.\u00a0In turn, that requires organizations that can compel attention.<\/p>\n Solutions<\/em><\/p>\n Unions are one essential form of organization. The Democratic Party Platform says<\/a>, “A major factor in the 40-year decline in the middle class is that the rights of workers to bargain collectively for better wages and benefits have been under attack at all levels.” The Platform promises: “Democrats will make it easier for workers, public and private, to exercise their right to organize and join unions. We will fight to pass laws that direct the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union if a simple majority of eligible workers sign valid authorization cards, as well as laws that bring companies to the negotiating table.”<\/p>\n I am not sure to what extent such reforms would restore the fortunes of organized labor, because another major obstacle is the changing nature of work; but we should certainly demand that the Democrats honor this promise.<\/p>\n In addition to unions, there are also community organizing groups that have\u00a0genuine roots\u00a0in white working class communities. Check out Kentuckians for the Commonwealth<\/a>\u00a0or the Maine People’s Alliance<\/a>, among many others.<\/p>\n There is also cultural work to be done: the creation of stories, images, music, and other media that inspire working people politically.\u00a0It’s striking that the Great Recession of 2007-8 never produced a\u00a0cultural response comparable to the 1930s: no iconic images or anthems.\u00a0I think a satisfactory\u00a0narrative must address racism, because that is both morally\u00a0important and necessary for building a coalition that spans races. However,\u00a0the main rhetorical emphasis cannot be\u00a0<\/i>the\u00a0privilege of being white, because “privileged” is a poor\u00a0description of\u00a0people who are being made\u00a0superfluous in the\u00a021st century labor market. Besides, I can’t think of any case when people have given up advantages because someone has drawn their attention to them. Told that they are privileged, people\u00a0are much more likely\u00a0to realize what they ought\u00a0to protect.<\/p>\n Nor can the main tone be resentment, a sense of victimhood, or reactionary nostalgia, because nothing good comes of that. The story\u00a0must evoke\u00a0genuine pride and must look forward rather than back.<\/p>\n Since an identity as “white” is deeply problematic, we should be looking for alternatives: pride in local geographical communities or specific subcultures, plus\u00a0a definition of “American” that is proudly inclusive rather than fearfully divisive.<\/p>\n Leonard Cohen probably isn’t the guy to reach a big enough audience, but we might take hints\u00a0from his song “Democracy” (brilliantly analyzed by Laura Grattan)<\/a>. For instance, here he\u00a0juxtaposes Otis Redding\u00a0with a Chevy ad, goes inside a\u00a0home and over\u00a0to the Middle East with our troops:<\/p>\n It’s coming from the silence It’s coming from the sorrow in the street, This is a version of progressive democratic patriotism. The Democrats didn’t do a bad job of evoking such ideas at\u00a0their\u00a0Convention. I think the issue is\u00a0the credibility of Democratic politicians as\u00a0messengers.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/i.huffpost.com\/gen\/955174\/thumbs\/o-CEPRUNIONIZATIONRATE19482012-570.jpg?6\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\non the dock of the bay,
\nfrom the brave, the bold, the battered
\nheart of Chevrolet:
\nDemocracy is coming to the U.S.A.<\/p>\n
\nthe holy places where the races meet;
\nfrom the homicidal bitchin’
\nthat goes down in every kitchen
\nto determine who will serve and who will eat.
\nFrom the wells of disappointment
\nwhere the women kneel to pray
\nfor the grace of God in the desert here
\nand the desert far away:
\nDemocracy is coming to the U.S.A.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n