HOW CULTURE WARS SCULPT CLASS CONFLICT INTO SUPPORT FOR THE FAR RIGHT
Reading time: 6 minutes
Class is expressed through cultural differences. Culture wars over abortion, guns, LGBTQIA+ issues, immigration, Mr. Potato Head etc. weaponize class differences between cultural elites and non-college grads. The far right “foregrounds real class cultural inequalities in order to obscure real economic ones.”[i]
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR BRIDGING THE DIPLOMA DIVIDE
DO’S
1. Understand how “cultural voting” weaponizes the class culture gap. “Cultural voting” accounts for most of the shift to the right both in Europe and the US in recent decades.[ii] This is often cited as evidence that class has lost its importance in politics – but in fact cultural voting weaponizes the class cultural differences into resentment of cultural elites, thereby channeling resentment away from business elites.[iii] This formula cements an alliance between non-elites and the business elites who exploit them.
2. Understand the pervasiveness of the class as expressed through cultural differences.[iv] Class scripts are etched deep into our lives, shaping our sense of self and our tastes into systematic cultural differences.[v] College-educated progressives are part of a cultural elite that follows class scripts very different from non-elites.
Self-worth: While the college-educated stress their high human capital and sophistication, non-elites stress their high moral capital and integrity.[vi]
Food: Elites demonstrate their sophistication through tiny morsels of novel labor-intensive food (aka the tasting menu); non-elites favor large portions of traditional favorites in an informal setting.[vii]
Leisure: Non-elite leisure is focused on hunting, fishing, ORVs, snowmobiles; college grads are more likely to sail, ski, play tennis, rock climb, hike.[viii]
Spiritualities: Non-elites stress traditional beliefs celebrated in tight-knit communities; elites favor “spiritual but not religious” individualism.
Childrearing: Non-elites hold the ideology of natural growth; elites favor the ideology of intensive mothering (both defined below).[ix]
Talk. Elites favor irony and evidence, non-elites more highly value sincerity, “straight talk” and “common sense.” (See Talking Across Class Lines)
3. One’s politics reflects one’s worldview, and college grads’ worldview reflects their privilege. If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the professional managerial elite (PME): the top 20% of American households with at least one college grad. PME jobs require high human capital, so our central ethic is self-development: we feel entitled to both career and sexual self-actualization.
4. Noncollege grads’ lack of privilege reflects a different reality. Noncollege grads’ central ethic is self-discipline: the kind of gets you up, every day, without “an attitude,” to an often not-very-fulfilling job.[x] That’s why non-elites highly value traditional institutions that anchor self-discipline: the military, religion, “family values.”[xi] In the scrum for social honor, non-elites view elites as pretentious and condescending, and themselves as straight talking and down-to-earth. Even Black noncollege voters are more conservative than Black college grads, especially on the views that religion, morality, and hard work can get you ahead.[xii]
5. Non-elite whites feel both threatened and insulted. Popular culture is replete with stereotypes of working-class whites as dimwitted, homely and uncouth, from Archie Bunker to Homer Simpson to Pennsatucky (Orange Is the New Black); ethnographies show that non-elites are well aware they are stereotyped as hicks and rednecks.[xiii] The fragile and failing middle class of all races, especially men, feel humiliated by their downward mobility in a society that defines that as a personal failure.
6. Understand why non-elites resent elites. Non-elites of all races chafe against intense managerial supervision by college grads “who don’t know shit about how to do anything, but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job.”[xiv] Non-elites feel talked down to by teachers and doctors.[xv] White-collar jobs are valued artificially highly, while blue-collar jobs are artificially devalued.
7. Middle-status Americans of all races value tradition, continuity, loyalty, patriotism and community more than elites do. Tradition & continuity: People in the middle of status hierarchies tend to be more traditional than either high- or low-status people;[xvi] they are more focused on losing what they have than on gaining more.[xvii] Patriotism is out of fashion among progressive elites, but remains robust for non-elites because being American is one of the only high-status categories they belong to and everyone stresses their high-status categories (that’s why the PME stresses membership in a global, cosmopolitan elite).[xviii] Community: Elites place higher values on individualism and creativity, while non-elites place a higher value on loyalty and community:[xix] that’s a key reason they typically stick closer to home.[xx]
8. Non-elites have nostalgia for traditional gender roles and endorse “family values” more than elites do. Traditional gender roles are often viewed with nostalgia by middle-status families who tag-team, with mom working one shift while dad works a different shift – a brutal schedule that leads to 3-6 times the national divorce rate.[xxi] For non-elite families, “it is still considered the norm and mark of financial success for a woman to stay at home while the man works.”[xxii] In addition, “Being ‘traditional’ and ‘family oriented’ gives [non-elites] a sense of their own success in moral terms as opposed to the unattainable economic terms of the American dream.”[xxiii]
9. Religion represents a key class divide. Polling shows that non-elites are more religious than elites are.[xxiv] Religion provides for non-elites the kind of stability, hopefulness, future orientation, impulse control and social safety net the college-educated get from their families, their careers, their therapists, and their bank accounts. The common claim “I am spiritual but not religious” signals that one has human capital high enough to develop one’s own artisanal bricolage of world religions. Conventional religion? So downmarket.
10. So does abortion. Noncollege voters of every race support abortion rights at lower rates than same-race college-educated voters do.[xxv] Anti-abortion views reflect key elements of non-elite culture: (a) Pro-life advocates often embed a critique of the PME’s habit of mistaking a job for a life, and pride themselves on their family-over-work ethic: “you can always get another job, but you can’t get another family.”(b) While the PME sees having a child as a time-consuming project of injecting massive amounts of human capital through intensive mothering, non-elites more often endorse the “ideology of natural growth” – the view that children will flourish if parents love them and give them the basics.[xxvi] Pro-life women often see themselves as standing up for the importance of caregiving in a materialistic society overly focused on careers.[xxvii]
11. Recognize that the far right has pushed culture wars far beyond the class culture gap. American Family Voices found that current culture wars over critical race theory, book banning, and most LGBTQ issues influenced Rust Belt voters less than economic issues.[xxviii]
DON’TS
1. Don’t cede powerful rhetorics to the far right.[i] Support from progressives did not fall, and support from moderates and conservatives grew, when a candidate used language focusing on the dignity of work, hard work, loyalty, and freedom to advocate a progressive platform: [ii]
"My vision for America is based on respect for the values and traditions that were handed down to us: hard work, loyalty to our country, and the freedom to forge your own path, and I believe it is patriotic to put American families ahead of big-money donors and special interests."
"I support these policies because showing respect for hard-working Americans is a sacred national tradition that I believe we must honor. [We]…will create…good jobs with dignity and respectable wages."
2. Don’t assume that status anxiety and class/economics are mutually exclusive. Psychologists document that people in the middle of status hierarchies tend to be higher in status anxiety than high-or low-status people, yet many political scientists assume a false dichotomy between status anxiety and economic position.[31] Such studies often mismeasure economics. (See Economic Populism Is about Economics, TK.)
3. Don’t deny white privilege but also recognize class privilege. Whites were first hired/last fired from well-paid blue-collar jobs and got FHA housing often not available to African-Americans. But their white privilege vis-à-vis same-class African-Americans does not erase working-class whites’ class disadvantage with respect to privileged whites. People can be simultaneously advantaged on one axis of social identity, and disadvantaged on another; that’s a central tenet of intersectionality.[32]
4. Insulting people plays into the hands of the far right. Just as racial stereotypes are inappropriate, so are disrespectful class stereotypes. Referring to or implying that Trump voters are stupid, “science-deniers,” “deplorables,” or “cling[ing] to guns or religion”– that’s a gift to the far right, who presents itself as standing up for the common man against condescending cultural elites.[33]
5. So does defining issues as moral issues upon which there can be no compromise. Defining everything from abortion to immigration as moral issues works well for the far right: this is what allows them to weaponize the class culture gap. Instead of turning everything into a moral issue, we need a clear distinction between politics as a hobby – Twitter-fueled performative purity that defines politics as bonding with people who agree with you – and politics as the process by which people with incommensurable realities and values find a way to live together peaceably and with mutual respect.[34]
6. Don’t assume people will have to move if they want a future. Again, non-elites of all races tend to be much more rooted than elites are, so it’s important to communicate that we care about areas left behind.[35] We need to address the geographic maldistribution of economic opportunity with programs that create jobs in red-ocean America, and support federal programs that strengthen civic bonds rather by giving localities block grants that they have to work together to decide how to spend.[36]
Many thanks to Hazel Marcus for her review of this white paper.
[1] Peck, R. (2019). How Fox News Hosts Imagine Themselves and Their Audience as Working Class. In Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class. Communication, Society and Politics, 125. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108634410.005
[2] Van der Waal, J., Achterberg, P., & Houtman, D. (2007). Class Is Not Dead—It Has Been Buried Alive: Class Voting and Cultural Voting in Postwar Western Societies (1956–1990). Politics & Society, 35(3), 403–426. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329207304314
[3] Inglehart, R. F. and Norris, P. (July 29, 2016). Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash. HKS Working Paper No. RWP16-026, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2818659
[4] Bourdieu, P. (1987). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. (R. Nice, Trans.). Routledge & Kegan Paul.
[5] Bettie, J. (2014). Women Without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity. United States: University of California Press.
[6] Sherman, J. (2009). Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, 137. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvk12rpt
[7] DeVault, M. L. (1994). Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press.
[8] Bourdieu, P. (1987). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. (R. Nice, Trans.). Routledge & Kegan Paul.
[9] Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. United Kingdom: University of California Press.
[10] Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvk12rpt
[11] Williams, J. C., Williams, R. (2008). Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Germany: Harvard University Press.
[12] Pougiales, R., & Fulton, J. (2019, December 30). A nuanced picture of what Black Americans want in 2020. Third Way. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.thirdway.org/memo/a-nuanced-picture-of-what-black-americans-want-in-2020
[13] Sherman, J. (2009). Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, 133. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[14] Sample, T. (2006). Blue Collar Resistance and the Politics of Jesus: Doing Ministry with Working Class Whites. United States: Abingdon Press.
[15] Lareau, A., & Calarco, J. M. (2012). Class, cultural capital, and institutions: The case of families and schools. In S. T. Fiske & H. R. Markus (Eds.), Facing social class: How societal rank influences interaction, 61–86. Russell Sage Foundation; Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, 140, 217-222. United Kingdom: University of California Press.
[16] Duguid, M. M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2015). Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus. Journal of personality and social psychology, 109(4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039569
[17] Duguid, M. M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2015). Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus. Journal of personality and social psychology, 109(4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039569
[18] Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration, p. 35. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvk12rpt
[19] Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S. M., Markus, H. R., & Phillips, L. T. (2012). A cultural mismatch: Independent cultural norms produce greater increases in cortisol and more negative emotions among first-generation college students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(6), 1389–1393. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.07.008; Duguid, M. M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2015). Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus. Journal of personality and social psychology, 109(4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039569
[20] Sherman, J. (2009). Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, 78. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[21] Shulman, B. (2003). The Betrayal of Work: How Low Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans and Their Families, 19–20, 37.
[22] Sherman, J. (2009). Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, 152. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[23] Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvk12rpt; Sherman, J. (2009). Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, 105, 108. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[24] Pew Research Center. (2017, April 26). In America, does more education equal less religion? Pew Research Center. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/26/in-america-does-more-education-equal-less-religion/
[25] Astrow, A. (2022, February 20). How does education level impact attitudes among voters of color? Third Way. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.thirdway.org/memo/how-does-education-level-impact-attitudes-among-voters-of-color
[26] Hays, S. (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. United Kingdom: Yale University Press; Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. United Kingdom: University of California Press.
[27] Ginsburg, F. D. (1998). Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community, Updated Edition. United Kingdom: University of California Press.
[28] Lux, M. (2022, June 7). Winning back the factory towns that made Trumpism possible. AmericanFamilyVoices. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.americanfamilyvoices.org/post/winning-back-the-factory-towns-that-made-trumpism-possible
[29] Feygina, I., Jost, J. T., & Goldsmith, R. E. (2010). System justification, the denial of global warming, and the possibility of "system-sanctioned change". Personality & social psychology bulletin, 36(3), 326–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209351435
[30] Astrow, A. (2022, March 30). Resolving the progressive paradox with professor Robb Willer . Third Way. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.thirdway.org/interview/resolving-the-progressive-paradox-with-professor-robb-willer
[31] Duguid, M. M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2015). Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus. Journal of personality and social psychology, 109(4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039569
[32] Curtin, N., Kende, A., & Kende, J. (2016). Navigating multiple identities: The simultaneous influence of advantaged and disadvantaged identities on politicization and activism. Journal of Social Issues, 72(2), 264–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12166; Rosette, A. S., & Tost, L. P. (2013). Perceiving Social Inequity: When Subordinate-Group Positioning on One Dimension of Social Hierarchy Enhances Privilege Recognition on Another. Psychological Science, 24(8), 1420–1427. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612473608
[33] Altschuler, G. C. (2023, August 27). Climate deniers are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. The Hill. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4172158-climate-deniers-are-entitled-to-their-own-opinions-but-not-their-own-facts/#:~:text=Energy%20and%20Environment-,Climate%20deniers%20are%20entitled%20to%20their%20own,but%20not%20their%20own%20facts; Reilly, K. (2021, April 29). Hillary Clinton Transcript: 'basket of deplorables' comment. Time. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/; Smith, B. (2008, April 11). Obama on small-town pa.: Clinging to religion, guns, xenophobia. POLITICO. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/04/obama-on-small-town-pa-clinging-to-religion-guns-xenophobia-007737
[34] Hersh, E. (2020). Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change. India: Scribner.
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[36] McQuarrie, M. (2017). The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(S1), 120–152. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12328