I have argued for some time that the Left has been taken over by Identity Politics rather than class and as such, middle class activists have generated cancel culture purges that alienated huge swathes of working class men away from the Left.
Pure temple politics as promoted by the Wellington Woke drove male voters into the arms of the reactionary right.
The Woke’s desire to strangle off free speech, the illusion of hashtag politics, the desire to derail the entire movement in favour of the .1% Trans movement, the extremes of MeToo and wrong message behind Black Lives Matter (the truth is far more white people are short and killed by American Police), all of this created culture war ammunition the right used devastatingly against us.
But if we can just push all the woke onto Bluesky where we can all ignore them, we might have a chance of winning back working class males, and the solution is the same one I’ve been arguing since day got – we need economic justice over the minefield of social justice!
New Report: Working-Class Social and Economic Attitudes
A new study from the Center for Working‑Class Politics and Jacobin reveals where working-class voters stand on key issues and how they differ from wealthier Americans. The message is clear: economic populism must be the core of progressive appeals to workers.
The Democrats’ working-class problem is not going away. In fact, it’s only getting worse — expanding beyond Donald Trump’s base of working-class whites to now include working-class Latinos and even a significant share of black men.
What We Did
To answer these questions, we analyzed 128 public-opinion questions from three of the most trusted and comprehensive surveys in US political science: the American National Election Studies (ANES), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Cooperative Election Study (CES). Our data spans from 1960 to 2022, allowing us to track long-term shifts in working-class attitudes across six issue domains: immigration, civil rights, social norms, environmental policy, and two categories of economic policy — predistribution (like wages and job protections) and redistribution (like taxes and social programs).
To supplement this historical analysis, we dug into the 2020 ANES to isolate working-class Trump voters and measure how many hold progressive views on economics and moderate views on culture. The result: a small but decisive bloc that could swing close elections.
This is one of the most comprehensive empirical portraits of working-class public opinion available — and challenges conventional wisdom in both liberal and left circles.
Top Takeaways
-
- Working‑class voters overwhelmingly support a range of bold progressive economic policies.
From raising the minimum wage to protecting Social Security, working‑class Americans showed broad approval of a wide range of progressive economic policies. - Working-class voters hold more progressive views than middle- and upper-class voters on a host of economic issues.
Working-class Americans showed stronger support than wealthier Americans for many predistributive measures like minimum wage hikes and job protections, and were also more favorable toward redistributive policies such as expanding Social Security and Medicare spending — though they express greater skepticism when those policies were explicitly tied to increased taxation.
- Working‑class voters overwhelmingly support a range of bold progressive economic policies.
- Cultural conservatism isn’t a brick wall.
While less progressive than middle- and upper-class Americans, working‑class views on civil rights, LGBTQ rights, and immigration have shifted to the left over the past two decades.
- The real gap? Middle- and upper-class voters have moved left more quickly than working-class voters.
Other voters have rapidly gone progressive on social issues — creating the impression that working-class voters are more conservative than they are.
-
- There’s an opening with some Trump voters.
Over 10 percent of 2020 Trump voters are working‑class, economically progressive, and cultural moderates. With the right messaging and messengers, they are persuadable.
- There’s an opening with some Trump voters.
We need more progressive economic policy and less cancelling people for misusing pronouns!
In NZ, the Left needs to bring men back from the reactionary right!
Brothers, Comrades, Mates & Fellow Blokes
There is a place for you on the NZ Left!
Just because you have a penis doesn’t make you toxic!
Don’t feel alienated by the more woke voices of the Left, you should not side with the corporations and the Billionaires and the speculators.
300 000 years of evolution that have gifted you the altruism to protect isn’t a sin!
As a man AND as a citizen, you have an obligation to protect everyone weaker than you, and you should stand against corporate interests, implemented because our anger and alienation have been manipulated by their social media hate algorithms.
Men are not the problem, rampant free market capitalism is!
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
I can’t see the misandrist old lady ex school teachers of Labour ever actually listening to the working class, how common!
Interesting study but what’s more interesting is it talks about selling policies to voter blocs to get the dems back in, nowhere is a groundswell of workers creating a political movement = this is more top down manipulation by the (very woke by the way) elites for political power, not an attempt to empower workers.
You could call it a study but really it’s just shallow market research survey to get a potential 10% more sales by knowing how to frame a pitch to an identified segment of consumers. They arent really going to redesign the product to meet the needs of working punters – are they?
So what is the boundary between working class and middle class in 2025?
I know blue collar types (and proudly so) who make a heap more in money than white collar bourgeoisie types. So is there an income line or lifestyle choice or something else that defines them?
And no I’m not trying to be a smart arse or anything.
Some things to think about:
Were you an essential worker during Covid?
Can you do your job “working from home”?
If your job disappeared would the country notice?
A coupla big points of difference in there.
Urinalbushrat, it’s a state of mind.
ACT have strategically alienated themselves, becoming a racist movement.
Comments are closed.