TALKING ACROSS CLASS LINES
Reading time: 5 minutes
The far right benefits when politicians send unintended class messages by the way they talk. This includes a long series of food gaffes: Howard Dean was decried as a "latte-drinking" elitist; Dukakis got into trouble with Belgian endive. 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.
DO’S AND DON’TS FOR BRIDGING THE DIPLOMA DIVIDE
DON’TS
A.
"The people closest to pain should be the people closest to power. In Washington, the wealthy and the privileged make the rules, but if you're poor, or an immigrant, or a person of color in America, then you know how hard it is just to survive in this country. We need courageous leaders who will protect the most vulnerable, fight for justice, and make transformative change.”
B.
"This country belongs to all of us, not just the superrich. But for years, politicians in Washington have turned their backs on people who work for a living. We need tough leaders who won't give in to millionaires and the lobbyists, but will fight for good jobs, good wages, and guaranteed healthcare for every American."
1. Messaging that reflects white-collar “feeling rules” squanders support for progressive policies.[i] (Feeling rules are class-specific conventions about who deserves empathy.) Blue-collar voters in swing states were 11 percentage points more likely to support B than A.[ii] This makes sense: Message A expresses empathy for three disenfranchised groups but neglects to mention people disadvantaged by social class.[iii] Leaving out the vector of structural inequality that affects working-class whites will reinforce their resistance to thinking structurally about inequality (which in turn will disadvantage the poor, immigrants, and people of color). Working-class people who preferred Message A were not turned off by Message B, so there is no downside to using it.[iv]
2. Also avoid messaging that taps white- but not blue-collar moral frameworks. Message B taps blue-collar moral frameworks that valorize “people who work for a living” who need good jobs that yield a stable, middle-class life. Message A does not:[v] instead, it taps white-collar frameworks that valorize fairness and transformative change.[vi] In swing states, working-class Catholics and people in rural/small towns had the strongest preference for Message B.[vii]
3. Ceding predictable masculinities to the far right strengthens them and weakens us. White-collar masculinity tends to valorize the courage and empathy of the “good man”; blue-collar masculinity is more likely to valorize the toughness of the “real man.”[viii] Think of the difference between John Stewart and Rush Limbaugh. Fox News connects emotionally with the “NASCAR audience” by using a blue-collar confrontative style and masculinist personalities like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.[ix] When men’s identity is threatened, men are more likely to express support for war, homophobic attitudes, and interest in buying an SUV – and current economic are threatening to many in the fragile and failing middle-class.[x] Endorsement of hegemonic masculinity predicts votes for Trump in both men and women.[xi] I’m not a fan of hegemonic masculinity, but neither am I willing to cede it to the far right when adopting many of the policies I believe in entails toughness and protecting the basic values of our community. Men of all classes see themselves as protectors; I don’t love it, but there it is.[xii] (See How Masculine Anxieties Feed Support for the Far Right)
DO’S
1. Recognize that white-collar traditions of talk are traditions that reflect privilege. Rachel Maddow epitomizes a professional class social world and cosmopolitan “taste culture“ that link authority with intellectualism and domain-specific expertise, flattering her listeners that they are members of a “fact-based community.”[xiii] Mainstream politicians typically seek to establish their authority by having “a policy for that” complete with wonky details. This inadvertently signals that their intended audience is college-educated.[xiv] It also ignores the fact that social identity has a greater influence on political choices than ideology; the cosmopolitan taste culture often reflected in political messaging embeds class scripts in ways Democrats and mainstream Republicans are often unaware of.[xv]
2. Don’t condescend to people; they hate it. Non-elites often find the Rachel-Maddow attitude arrogant and condescending, especially when it’s combined with the assumption that elites’ preferences reflect informed decision-making whereas non-elites’ preferences reflect mere emotion. High-status people commonly caricature lower-status people as “too emotional” and enshrine their own parochial viewpoint as Enlightened Truth. This is unseemly.
3. Avoid upper-middle-class cultural references. Politicians often use upper-middle-class cultural references, assuming they are universal – but they aren’t. These include references to upper-middle-class institutions like Whole Foods (Obama), upper-middle-class foods like Belgian endive (Dukakis), and upper-middle-class leisure activities like windsurfing (Kerry) – not the mention George W. Bush’s admission he had never before seen a supermarket scanner. Kerry’s intention was to signal youthfulness and vigor; instead he signaled class privilege.[xvi]
4. Respect and tap non-elites’ talk traditions. Blue-collar Americans decry “middle-class gameplaying bullshit,” which is how they see elite claims of domain-specific expertise.[xvii] They pride themselves on authenticity and unadorned straight talk. Fox News connects with the “NASCAR audience” using vernacular speech patterns and regional slang.[xviii] “Look, stop the B.S!,” said Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, using a class blue-collar trope.[xix] Don’t cede this to the far right; Democrat John Fetterman won the Pennsylvania Senate primary using “unfussy and plainspoken” language.[xx]
5. Recognize the importance of messenger. Working-class voters care more about the class background than the gender or race of a candidate.[xxi] In swing states, progressive populist candidates who were teachers or construction workers are preferred by nearly two-thirds of working-class voters, notably higher than any other message/occupation grouping (including veterans).[xxii] Many Trump voters are attracted to his self-construction as a businessman, given that the life dream of many non-elite voters is to own their own small business: it’s the dream of an order-taker to be in order-giver.
6. Recognize that elites’ failure to stop the demise of the American dream has led to a skepticism about American institutions. “The American people have a right to be angry,” to quote Bill O’Reilly. Rural and rustbelt communities who have seen their communities and their futures wither are lamentably but predictably less emotionally attached to the institutions that have failed them: typically this drives white people to the far right and people of color to the far left. [xxiii] The January 6 investigation is an important defense of fundamental American institutions, but understand that it may seem an insight-the-Beltway sideshow to red-ocean Americans. Teaching civics would help a lot.
7. To counter the Stop the Steal, you need to understand the underlying appeal. “Supporters take Trump seriously but not literally; opponents take him literally but not seriously.”[xxiv] Trump and other far-right figures connect emotionally with many voters’ sense of being screwed economically and dissed culturally; the Stop-the-Steal is a stand-in for all the ways they feel ripped off. Deriding people for being gullible just reinforces the far-right’s claim that their dignity has been stolen. Instead, connect with people’s sense of having been ripped off but offer them a different explanation for who ripped them off: elites who have pocketed workers’ fair share of productivity, foreclosed on their homes, shipped their jobs abroad, and offered them only jobs as Uber drivers who earn so little they sleep in their cars.[xxv]
[i] Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85(3), 551–575. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2778583
[ii] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 15. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[iii] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 57. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[iv] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 12. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[v] 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, 133. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[vi] Feinberg, M., & Willer, R. (2019). Moral reframing: A technique for effective and persuasive communication across political divides, 13. Social and Personality Psychology Compass. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12501
[vii] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 28. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[viii] Kimmel, M. (2018, March 6). Raise your son to be a good man, not a 'real' man. The Cut. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/teaching-our-sons-to-be-good-men.html
[ix] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 51, 52, 75. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[x] Willer, R., Rogalin, C. L., Conlon, B., & Wojnowicz, M. T. (2013). Overdoing Gender: A Test of the Masculine Overcompensation. Thesis. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 980–1022. https://doi.org/10.1086/668417
[xi] Vescio, T. K., & Schermerhorn, N. E. (2021). Hegemonic masculinity predicts 2016 and 2020 voting and candidate evaluations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(2). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2020589118
[xii] 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, 133. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; Lamont, M. (1992). Money, Morals, and Manners: The Culture of the French and the American Upper-Middle Class. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press.
[xiii] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 12, 13. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; Bourdieu, P. (1987). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. (R. Nice, Trans.). Routledge & Kegan Paul.
[xiv] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 4. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[xv] 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; Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 15. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[xvi] Williams, R., Williams, J. C., Williams, R., Williams, J. C. (2008). Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter, 186. Germany: Harvard University Press.
[xvii] Langston, D. (1993). Who am I Now? The Politics of Class Identity in Working-class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory, 72. United States: University of Massachusetts Press.
[xviii] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 51, 66, 75. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[xix] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 11. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
[xx] Leonhardt, D. (2022, May 18). 'Unfussy and Plain-Spoken'. The New York Times. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/briefing/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-primary.html
[xxi] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 13. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[xxii] Jacobin Editors. (2021, September 11). Commonsense solidarity: How a working-class coalition can be built, and maintained, 34. Jacobin. Retrieved May 26, 2022, from https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report
[xxiii] Peck, R. (2019). Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class, 11. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; Autor, D. H., Dorn, D., and Hanson, G. H. (2013). The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States. American Economic Review, 103 (6): 2121-68.
[xxiv] Goldberg, J. (2016, December 6). Column: Take Trump Seriously But Not Literally? How, Exactly? Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldberg-trump-seriously-literally-20161206-story.html
[xxv] 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; Autor, D. H., Dorn, D., & Hanson, G. H. (2013). The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States. The American Economic Review, 103(6), 2121–2168. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42920646