Bridging the diploma divide in American politics

What is the diploma divide?

Is there a single change that could simultaneously increase support for climate change initiatives, defuse assaults on democracy, and decrease inequality? Yes: bridging the diploma divide between college grads and noncollege grads.

The sharp increase in inequality in the U.S. has been accompanied by a shift towards the far right among non-college voters of every racial group—despite the fact that far-right policies exacerbate inequality. This “diploma divide” reflects far-right success in sculpting economic anxieties into culture wars that now include opposition to climate change initiatives and assaults on democracy itself. Bridging the Diploma Divide holds the key to redirecting economic anxieties back into demands for greater income and social equality.

Isn’t far-right support about about racism?

Yes. Three different measures of racism are highly predictive of Trump voting, but a 2023 study shows that’s not why he won. Trump won because he also attracted a much larger group of voters with moderate levels of racial resentment. A prior study confirmed this: 20% of Trump voters polled as racist “preservationists” but 19% were “anti-elites” with moderate views on race.

What’s needed is not to fix noncollege voters but to fix the broken relationship between college and noncollege voters. This begins with cultural competence: elites typically know less about nonelites than vice versa. The first step is to recognize that that our values reflect our lives, and our lives reflect our privilege – or lack of it. Nonelites’ cultural commitments reflect the material conditions of their lives, which are very different from the elite lives. The result is the class culture gap: class is expressed through cultural differences, so that people from different classes have different values, different traditions of talk, and different attitudes towards tradition itself.

To understand how the far right successfully weaponizes the class culture gap, keep reading. The roadmaps below take only about 6 minutes each to read. They offer simple dos and don’ts to bridge the diploma divide, decrease polarization and inequality, and defend democracy.

POLICYMAKERS: learn how to frame issues to decrease the far-right’s appeal.

REPORTERS: find experts and new story ideas

ANYONE: understand how class drives American politics—which doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t.

Building cross-class and red state support for climate initiatives

Climate change is a far more polarized issue in the US than abroad because it has become associated with identity-based culture wars. What follows is a recipe for countering that. The good news is that we can message climate change in ways that can broaden support; the bad news is that this will require considerable change in the ways that environmentalists currently talk about climate change.

Wind Turbines

How the far right weaponizes racism, with counterstrategies

Charlottesville, VA, August 12, 2017

The far right seeks to convince working-class whites that their fortunes have fallen due to discrimination against them because they’re white; in fact, their fortunes have fallen because they’re working class. Recognizing this requires a language of social class. Unions help, as do messages focused on shared class interests that discuss class and racism together. This “race-class narrative” builds working-class power while it decreases racism—and the power of the far right.

How culture wars sculpt class conflict into support for the far right

Washington D.C., June 24 & 27, 2022

Class is expressed through cultural differences. Culture wars over abortion, guns, LGBTQIA+ issues, immigration, and Mr. Potato Head weaponize class differences between cultural elites and noncollege grads into support for the far right. This strategy “foregrounds real class cultural inequalities in order to obscure real economic ones.”

Rudy Giuliani at Republican National Convention, July 18, 2016; quote from Giuliani Jan. 6, 2021

How masculine anxieties fuel support for the far right

So much ink has been spilled about whether economic populism is about race or class that the powerful gender dynamics are often ignored. They shouldn’t be. Endorsement of hegemonic masculinity (aka macho) predicts Trump voting in both men and women—and it predicts positive evaluations of Trump even more than racism. Trump embodies a truculent form of “protest” masculinity that’s deeply resonant in an era of widespread economic anxiety. Ceding that powerful rhetoric to the far right is unwise. The only effective antidote to claims of masculinity are competing claims of masculinity.

Building cross-class support for economic justice

Foreclosed house, 2019.

After Biden’s election, Democrats assumed that “going big” on new redistributive programs was the key to a new Democratic majority. Research shows why that didn’t work: there is more support for labor market reforms than for redistribution. The solution is economic justice initiatives that tap deeply held beliefs that the rich are paid too much, that everyone else is paid too little, and that anyone who works hard deserves a stable middle-class life and retirement.

Click image for more info

Talking across class lines

The far right benefits when politicians send unintended class messages by the way they talk. Understanding the different talk traditions in elite and non-elite circles would eliminate a lot of unforced errors, but it would also require elites to learn – and respect – the talk traditions of non-elites.

Economic populism is about economics

Coming soon!

Commentary

How the Left Can Embrace Nationalism While Maintaining Its Values

Justin Gest, The Washington Post

What if We're the Bad Guys Here?

David Brooks, The New York Times

The Democratic Party Needs New, Younger Leadership Before It’s Too Late

Cas Mudde features Matt Barreto and Christopher S. Parker, The Guardian

Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America

Christopher S. Parker and Matt Barreto, Princeton University Press

Economy, COVID Drove Latino Voters Toward Trump in 2020

David Lauter features Matt Barreto, Los Angeles Times

What the 'Majority Minority' Shift Really Means for America

Justin Gest, The New York Times

UW Professor: ‘Hard to Be an Optimist,’ but This Time Could Be Different

Ed Ronco and Christopher S. Parker, KNKX Public Radio

Donald Trump Is Not the Only Alleged Criminal Democrats Can’t Unseat

Hallie Golden features Christopher S. Parker, The Nation

The Problem With How the Census Classifies White People

Justin Gest, The Atlantic

Averting Climate Collapse Requires Confronting Racism in Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can

Ian Haney López, Simon & Schuster

Can Democracy Survive Racism as a Strategy?

Ian Haney López, Protect Democracy

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class

Ian Haney López, Oxford University Press

How Populists Like Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Racism

Ian Haney López, The Nation

Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America

Ian Haney López, The New Press

This Is How Trump Convinces His Supporters They're Not Racist

Ian Haney López, The Nation

Reece Peck on Fox New’s Blue-Collar Conservatism

Illiberalism and Reece Peck, Illiberalism Studies Program

Our Divided Times Are an Opportunity for Empathy. Really.

Jamil Zaki, Robb Willer, Jan Gerrit Voelkel, and Luiza Santos, The Washington Post

Democratic Elites Don’t Understand the Class Culture Gap

Joan C. Williams, The New Republic

How Biden Can Unify America

Justin Gest, Politico

Don’t Lose the Democratizing Effect of Remote Work

Joan C. Williams, Rachel Korn, and Mikayla Boginsky, Harvard Business Review

Fetterman, Trump, and a New Model of Blue-Collar Masculinity

Joan C. Williams, Politico

How Returning to Office Work is Impoverishing the Middle Class

Joan C. Williams, Politico

How You Treat the ‘Non-Elite’ is Key to Beating Populism

Joan C. Williams, Financial Times

The Democrats’ White-People Problem

Joan C. Williams, The Atlantic

The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension

Joan C. Williams, The New York Times

The Elites Feed Anti-Immigrant Bias

Joan C. Williams, The Wall Street Journal

The Misguided Push for an Equal Rights Amendment

Joan C. Williams, The New York Times

Why Progressive Candidates Should Invoke Conservative Values

Robb Willer and Jan Gerrit Voelkel, The New York Times

It's Time for an Expansive New Labor Movement

Leslie McCall and Jennifer Sherman The Boston Globe

The One Vital Message Democrats Need to Win

Joan C. Williams, Politico

Can the Democratic Party Be White Working Class Too?

Justin Gest, The American Prospect

White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

Joan C. Williams, Harvard Business Review Press

‘Democrats Had Better Get Their Act Together’: Efforts to Combat Inflation Aren’t Resonating With Latino Voters

Joe Garofoli features Matt Barreto, San Francisco Chronicle

Can the Democratic Party Be White Working Class, Too?

Justin Gest, The American Prospect

Dispatch from Deep in the Heart of Trump Country

Justin Gest, Reuters

Donald Trump Takes White Working Class People Down With Him

Justin Gest, Reuters

How Democrats Can Win Noncollege Voters Without Giving in to Racism

Joan C. Williams, The Hill

“I’m Not A Racist, But…”

Justin Gest, Politico

 

Labour Is Moving Close to Disaster. How Can It Reconnect With Its Roots?

Justin Gest, The Guardian

Strange Bedfellows: Donald Trump and the White Working Class

Justin Gest, Reuters

The GOP Base Is Shrinking Fast. So Why Does its Power Seem So Secure?

Justin Gest, CNN

The Real Reason the White Working Class Still Support Trump

Justin Gest, The Washington Post

The Two Kinds of Trump Voters

Justin Gest, Politico

Why Trumpism Will Outlast Donald Trump

Justin Gest, Politico

John Fetterman Is Running a Test That Democrats Need to Watch

Lisa R. Pruitt, Politico

“Latino America’s” Matt Barreto: Politicos Are Missing The Boat

NBC news staff feature Matt Barreto, NBC News

Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation

Matt Barreto, University of Michigan Press

Latino America: How America’s Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation

Matt Barreto and Gary M. Segura, Public Affairs

Is Democracy Declining in the American States?

Matt Grossman features Matt Barreto, Niskanen Center

Want to Win Latino voters? Drop the Assumptions and Organize

Michael Sean Winters features Matt Barreto

Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class

Reece Peck, Cambridge University Press

Is Fox News the Smartest Journalism Ever?

Reece Peck, LA Progressive

Are Moral Judgements Good or Bad Things?

Robb Willer and Brent Simpson, Scientific American

Declining Status Leads to Resentment of Political Correctness

Robb Willer, The New York Times

Is the Environment a Moral Cause?

Robb Willer, The New York Times

The Critical Difference Between Republicans and Democrats That Explains the Presidential Campaign

Robb Willer and Chadly Stern, The Washington Post

The Key to Political Persuasion

Robb Willer and Matthew Feinberg, The New York Times

Working Group

(still in formation)

●           Rep. Ro Khanna, Honorary Chair

●           Sociologists who have written ethnographic studies of blue-collar and rural Americans: Michèle Lamont of Harvard and Jennifer Sherman of Washington State.

●           Scholars who have studied the relationship of elite Americans with less privileged Americans: Michael Sandel of Harvard, Daniel Markovits of Yale Law School, and Joan C. Williams of University of California Law San Francisco.

●           Critical race scholars and others who study the interaction of class, race and gender privilege: Ian Haney López of Berkeley and Karyn Lacy of the University of Michigan, and Saida Grundy of Boston University.

●           Scholars who study people of color in politics: Mara Ostfeld of Michigan, Matt Barreto of UCLA/BSP research, and Corey Fields of Georgetown.

●           Social psychologists who study the psychological dimensions of interclass relationships: Susan Fiske of Princeton and Cecilia Ridgeway of Stanford.

●           Political scientists who study polarization and populism: Katherine Cramer of University of Wisconsin, Justin Gest of George Mason, Peter A. Hall of Harvard.

●           Scholars and activists who study the political dimensions of masculinity: Robb Willer of Stanford, Terri Vescio of Penn State and Jackson Katz.

●           Scholars of social inequality: Leslie McCall of CUNY and Hazel Marcus of Stanford.

●           Media scholars who study far-right media: Reece Peck of the CUNY Graduate Center and Anthony Nadler of Ursinus College.

●           People focused on the urban/rural divide: Lisa Pruitt of Davis, Anthony Flaccavento of Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.

●           Pollsters: Celinda Lake and Matt Baretto of UCLA/BSP Research.

●           Advisor and playwright: Jean Parvin Bordewich

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