… among the targeted constituencies … a certain type of economic messaging resonates. It blames insurance companies and other conglomerates for high medical and prescription drug costs and hits big corporations for price gouging and tax avoidance. It blames Trump and Republicans for allowing these things to happen. And finally, that messaging vows that Democrats will crack down on them.
Similarly, regions hit hard by Trump\u2019s tariffs and Iran-war-related costs are very responsive to arguments about those things. Among targeted voters in Iowa\u2019s 1st and 2nd districts, for instance, one message that resonates hits Republicans for backing Trump\u2019s tariffs and his war with Iran, arguing that they\u2019ve hiked grocery and energy costs and hurt farmers who export goods. In short, what appears to work is a populist economics that centers villains, hits Trump and Republicans for enabling them, and pledges action.<\/blockquote>\nJohn Stoehr<\/a> thinks a message focused on villains<\/i> appeals to something special in the white working-class brain.\n… that word gets at something important about the white working class. These voters … have been primed to gobble up messaging that names the bad guy. Only instead of “insurance companies and other conglomerates,” the villains have been “criminal illegal aliens” or some other other<\/i>. The white working class is persuaded by messaging that clearly identifies the criminal, the crime and the punishment, to wit: The brown guy is stealing from you, so crack down on him.
Maga messaging also taps into the fundamental nature of the white working-class voters, which is that, above and beyond all else, they are hierarchical. The belief that society has a top-down structure is fixed. That’s why they can apply the word “entitled” to people at the bottom of the social order \u2013 undeserving “welfare queens” \u2013 as well as people at the top \u2013 the undeserving rich. Neither has earned their place. One wants everything given to them. The other has already had everything given to them. Both are “entitled.”<\/blockquote>\nStoehr continues:\nFor a decade, the GOP has oriented white working-class voters so they look downward only. The trick for the Democrats is reversing that orientation, so the criminal, the crime and the punishment are just as clear looking upward, to wit: The rich are stealing from you, so crack down on them.<\/blockquote>\nI understand what Stoehr is getting at, but I think a lot of this is wrong, and a little bit patronizing.
First of all, if being “hierarchical” means believing “that society has a top-down structure,” who’s more hierarchical than educated progressives? We believe that the rich have way too much money and politcal power. Our anti-Trump movement is called No Kings. Many of us quote the aphorism<\/a> “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.”
Beyond that, if white working-class voters really believed that society’s “top-down structure is fixed,” they wouldn’t<\/i> want the rich taxed at a higher level, as even some Republicans do now<\/a>. They wouldn’t<\/i> oppose the construction of data centers by wealthy tech firms, as some Republicans<\/a> (though far more independents and Democrats) do now.
Do you know who’s really<\/i> hierarchical, in Stoehr’s sense? Voters who still admire Trump despite all the maladministration they’ve seen. These are the people who think Trump’s billionaire status and gold-plated life are signs that God wants him to be rich and powerful. Even now, they wallow in AI images in which he bestrides the world like a Colossus. No Democrat is getting their votes, ever.
Stoehr writes:\nProgressives who do not come from the white working class may not be aware that working-class white Americans are essentially illiberal, in the sense that they will resist liberal attempts to flatten the top-down structure of society. In that resistance, however, lies an opportunity. It is because they are illiberal that they are not only open to a message of retribution, but attracted by it. They already know who’s screwing them. What they don’t know is who’s going to make it right. The Democratic candidate’s job is to tell them.<\/blockquote>\nI’m a progressive who comes from the white working class. If you “resist liberal attempts to flatten the top-down structure of society,” does that mean you’re “illiberal”? Or does it mean you worry that the would-be flatteners will just become a new set of elites screwing you? (That’s certainly what Fox News has told them — for several decades, not just the decade of Trump.)
And again, if they’re “open to a message of retribution,” doesn’t that mean they are<\/i> receptive to at least some<\/i> flattening?
I think what’s going on is a lot simpler. A certain percentage of white working-class Americans now believe they’re being shafted by a Republican president and his party, and they want action. There’s nothing uniquely working-class about wanting action — suburban Democratic women want action, too. Here’s a scene from a gathering of Democrats in the Cleveland suburbs, as reported by The Atlantic<\/i>‘s Elaine Godfrey<\/a>. The chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, Kathleen Clyde, is struggling to win over voters (mostly women) who should be receptive to her message:\n\u201cWhat are we going to do differently?\u201d one woman asked, pointing out that the Democrats\u2019 brand is terrible. Eventually, the microphone was abandoned, and another woman asked: \u201cWhy don\u2019t the Democrats have a good<\/i> message?\u201d A third woman chimed in, a little frantically: \u201cWhat can we do?!\u201d
Clyde\u2019s eyes were wide. She hadn\u2019t expected friendly fire. \u201cWe do have a good message!\u201d she sputtered. \u201cAffordability!\u201d But the women smelled weakness, and now, several of them were shouting at once. \u201cHow are you going to do that?\u201d one demanded. \u201cIt has to be more specific!\u201d <\/blockquote>\nThe weak tea Democrats seem to be offering is We’re laser-focused on affordability!<\/i> with no specifics. The liberal women in that Ohio gathering will sigh wearily and vote for that message, even though they find it lacking. But even very disaffected ex-Trump voters in the white working class probably won’t.
How did Mikie Sherill score a double-digit win in the New Jersey gubernatorial race last year? In part, by promising to freeze utility bills<\/a>.
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