Download or read book White Working Class written by Joan C. Williams and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I recommend a book by Professor Williams, it is really worth a read, it's called White Working Class." -- Vice President Joe Biden on Pod Save America An Amazon Best Business and Leadership book of 2017 Around the world, populist movements are gaining traction among the white working class. Meanwhile, members of the professional elite—journalists, managers, and establishment politicians--are on the outside looking in, left to argue over the reasons. In White Working Class, Joan C. Williams, described as having "something approaching rock star status" by the New York Times, explains why so much of the elite's analysis of the white working class is misguided, rooted in class cluelessness. Williams explains that many people have conflated "working class" with "poor"--but the working class is, in fact, the elusive, purportedly disappearing middle class. They often resent the poor and the professionals alike. But they don't resent the truly rich, nor are they particularly bothered by income inequality. Their dream is not to join the upper middle class, with its different culture, but to stay true to their own values in their own communities--just with more money. While white working-class motivations are often dismissed as racist or xenophobic, Williams shows that they have their own class consciousness. White Working Class is a blunt, bracing narrative that sketches a nuanced portrait of millions of people who have proven to be a potent political force. For anyone stunned by the rise of populist, nationalist movements, wondering why so many would seemingly vote against their own economic interests, or simply feeling like a stranger in their own country, White Working Class will be a convincing primer on how to connect with a crucial set of workers--and voters.

Download or read book The Great Alignment written by Alan I. Abramowitz and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alan I. Abramowitz has emerged as a leading spokesman for the view that our current political divide is not confined to a small group of elites and activists but a key feature of the American social and cultural landscape. The polarization of the political and media elites, he argues, arose and persists because it accurately reflects the state of American society. Here, he goes further: the polarization is unique in modern U.S. history. Today’s party divide reflects an unprecedented alignment of many different divides: racial and ethnic, religious, ideological, and geographic. Abramowitz shows how the partisan alignment arose out of the breakup of the old New Deal coalition; introduces the most important difference between our current era and past eras, the rise of “negative partisanship”; explains how this phenomenon paved the way for the Trump presidency; and examines why our polarization could even grow deeper. This statistically based analysis shows that racial anxiety is by far a better predictor of support for Donald Trump than any other factor, including economic discontent.

Download or read book The White Working Class Today written by Andrew Levison and published by Democratic Strategist Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of the 2012 elections some progressive commentators have drawn the mistaken conclusion that the Democratic coalition no longer needs to win the support of any significant number of white working class Americans. The high turnout and pro-Democrats tilt of youth, minorities, single women and upscale professionals in 2012 has led some political strategists to imagine a new "Obama coalition" that does not need to include white working Americans. Andrew Levison's remarkable new book dramatically challenges this false notion and presents a compelling case that winning the support of a substantial group of white working class Americans remains absolutely critical for the creation of a stable Democratic majority. The book very dramatically shows: That white workers remain a critical swing group in American politics That white workers represent a far larger part of the workforce than is often thought. That white workers are not all "conservative" but include many progressives and moderates as well. The book presents extensive data drawn from demographic analysis, opinion polls, focus groups and field research to butress its dramatic conclusions Reviews: Andy Levison's The White Working Class Today is a tremendous contribution to our understanding of this vital group. Too many progressives dismiss the white working class as either irrelevant or hopelessly reactionary or both. Levison shows in this compelling, empirically grounded work just how wrong they are. I don't often describe a book as a "must read." This is one. Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution and Author of The Emerging Democratic Majority: The White Working Class Today is a studious, well-researched, and timely signal to progressives that we cannot ignore today's Reagan Democrats. Levison is a rare voice in progressive and Democratic circles today, and this book raises critical questions about how progressives should think about, define, and address the needs of the white working class. Stan Greenberg, leading Democratic pollster, political strategist and advisor to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Tony Blair and other progressive leaders "In "White Working Class Today," Andrew Levison offers us a powerful analysis and solution to one of the most important dynamics in politics -- the alienation between white working class voters and liberals. Levision fills a large void in an important discussion, explaining exactly how the Democratic coalition can break the political stalemate, bring this important group into the fold and move a stable, progressive agenda forward. Karen Nussbaum, Executive director of Working America, the 3 million member community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Andrew Levison's book assesses today's white working class from a fresh, empirically-grounded perspective, and provides unique insight for all those who want to understand this critically important segment of U.S. society and political life. Ed Kilgore, political commentator, author of the Washington Monthly's Political Animal.

Download or read book The Emerging Democratic Majority written by John B. Judis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-02-10 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR AND A WINNER OF THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY'S ANNUAL POLITICAL BOOK AWARD Political experts John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira convincingly use hard data -- demographic, geographic, economic, and political -- to forecast the dawn of a new progressive era. In the 1960s, Kevin Phillips, battling conventional wisdom, correctly foretold the dawn of a new conservative era. His book, The Emerging Republican Majority, became an indispensable guide for all those attempting to understand political change through the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the country in Republican hands, The Emerging Democratic Majority is the indispensable guide to this era. In five well-researched chapters and a new afterword covering the 2002 elections, Judis and Teixeira show how the most dynamic and fastest-growing areas of the country are cultivating a new wave of Democratic voters who embrace what the authors call "progressive centrism" and take umbrage at Republican demands to privatize social security, ban abortion, and cut back environmental regulations. As the GOP continues to be dominated by neoconservatives, the religious right, and corporate influence, this is an essential volume for all those discontented with their narrow agenda -- and a clarion call for a new political order.

Download or read book Red State Blue State Rich State Poor State written by Andrew Gelman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the night of the 2000 presidential election, Americans watched on television as polling results divided the nation's map into red and blue states. Since then the color divide has become symbolic of a culture war that thrives on stereotypes--pickup-driving red-state Republicans who vote based on God, guns, and gays; and elitist blue-state Democrats woefully out of touch with heartland values. With wit and prodigious number crunching, Andrew Gelman debunks these and other political myths. This expanded edition includes new data and easy-to-read graphics explaining the 2008 election. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State is a must-read for anyone seeking to make sense of today's fractured political landscape.

Download or read book The New Minority written by Justin Gest and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It wasn't so long ago that the white working class occupied the middle of British and American societies. But today members of the same demographic, feeling silenced and ignored by mainstream parties, have moved to the political margins. In the United States and the United Kingdom, economic disenfranchisement, nativist sentiments and fear of the unknown among this group have even inspired the creation of new right-wing parties and resulted in a remarkable level of support for fringe political candidates, most notably Donald Trump. Answers to the question of how to rebuild centrist coalitions in both the U.S. and U.K. have become increasingly elusive. How did a group of people synonymous with Middle Britain and Middle America drift to the ends of the political spectrum? What drives their emerging radicalism? And what could possibly lead a group with such enduring numerical power to, in many instances, consider themselves a "minority" in the countries they once defined? In The New Minority, Justin Gest speaks to people living in once thriving working class cities--Youngstown, Ohio and Dagenham, England--to arrive at a nuanced understanding of their political attitudes and behaviors. In this daring and compelling book, he makes the case that tension between the vestiges of white working class power and its perceived loss have produced the unique phenomenon of white working class radicalization.

Download or read book Democrats and the White Working Class written by Stan Greenberg and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-06-02 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a unique collection of essays by 12 of America's leading progressive political analysts and researchers. In the spring of 2017 the American Prospect and the White Working Class Roundtable joined together to organize an unprecedented roundtable discussion aimed at addressing the vital and urgent challenge of regaining support from white working class Americans. The organizers of the roundtable reached out to a very select group of top polling analysts, demographic specialists and social science researchers, asking them to submit commentaries that articulate their interpretation of the results of the 2016 election and present their ideas about political strategies for regaining support from America's working people. The contributors to this collection include the leading opinion pollsters Stan Greenberg, Guy Molyneux and Celinda Lake, political demographer Ruy Teixeira, well known writers and editors Harold Meyerson and Robert Kuttner as well as a variety of other leading researchers in this field, individuals ranging from grass roots organizers to ethnographic field workers. The results of this unique collaboration are already generating wide discussion in the American Prospect magazine and are now collected in this volume to provide the most substantial reference and source of information for progressives and democrats who wish to understand and communicate with white working Americans.

Download or read book The Once and Future Worker written by Oren Cass and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Cass’s] core principle—a culture of respect for work of all kinds—can help close the gap dividing the two Americas....” – William A. Galston, The Brookings Institution The American worker is in crisis. Wages have stagnated for more than a generation. Reliance on welfare programs has surged. Life expectancy is falling as substance abuse and obesity rates climb. These woes are not the inevitable result of irresistible global and technological forces. They are the direct consequence of a decades-long economic consensus that prioritized increasing consumption—regardless of the costs to American workers, their families, and their communities. Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency focused attention on the depth of the nation’s challenges, yet while everyone agrees something must change, the Left’s insistence on still more government spending and the Right’s faith in still more economic growth are recipes for repeating the mistakes of the past. In this groundbreaking re-evaluation of American society, economics, and public policy, Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from to reveal how we lost our way. The good news is that we can still turn things around—if the nation’s proverbial elites are willing to put the American worker’s interests first. Which is more important, pristine air quality, or well-paying jobs that support families? Unfettered access to the cheapest labor in the world, or renewed investment in the employment of Americans? Smoothing the path through college for the best students, or ensuring that every student acquires the skills to succeed in the modern economy? Cutting taxes, expanding the safety net, or adding money to low-wage paychecks? The renewal of work in America demands new answers to these questions. If we reinforce their vital role, workers supporting strong families and communities can provide the foundation for a thriving, self-sufficient society that offers opportunity to all.

Download or read book Listen Liberal written by Thomas Frank and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of What's the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the standard-bearers of liberal politics -- a book that asks: what's the matter with Democrats? It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course. But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming. With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

Download or read book What s the Matter with Kansas written by Thomas Frank and published by Picador. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times

Download or read book White Identity Politics written by Ashley Jardina and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst discontent over America's growing diversity, many white Americans now view the political world through the lens of a racial identity. Whiteness was once thought to be invisible because of whites' dominant position and ability to claim the mainstream, but today a large portion of whites actively identify with their racial group and support policies and candidates that they view as protecting whites' power and status. In White Identity Politics, Ashley Jardina offers a landmark analysis of emerging patterns of white identity and collective political behavior, drawing on sweeping data. Where past research on whites' racial attitudes emphasized out-group hostility, Jardina brings into focus the significance of in-group identity and favoritism. White Identity Politics shows that disaffected whites are not just found among the working class; they make up a broad proportion of the American public - with profound implications for political behavior and the future of racial conflict in America.

Download or read book The Optimistic Leftist written by Ruy Teixeira and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teixeira examines "the structural and economic shifts remaking advanced societies and [believes] that the left is in a far better position to advance its agenda than the right. Eventually, [he says], the right will be forced to play on the left's terms to be competitive. This is because only the left has growing, not declining, coalitional strength and only the left is willing to confront and solve capitalism's 'Piketty problem' (a vicious cycle of rising inequality, stagnating living standards, and slowing economic growth) by building a new equitable-growth 'opportunity state'"--

Download or read book Americans Against the City written by Steven Conn and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a paradox of American life that we are a highly urbanized nation filled with people deeply ambivalent about urban life. In this provocative and sweeping book, historian Steven Conn explores the "anti-urban impulse" across the 20th century and examines how those ideas have shaped the places Americans have lived and worked, and how they have shaped the anti-government politics of the New Right.

Download or read book Break Em Up written by Zephyr Teachout and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[We need] a grassroots, bottom-up movement that understands the challenge in front of us, and then organizes against monopoly power in communities across this country. This book is a blueprint for that organizing. In these pages, you will learn how monopolies and oligopolies have taken over almost every aspect of American life, and you will also learn about what can be done to stop that trend before it is too late." —From the foreword by Bernie Sanders. A passionate attack on the monopolies that are throttling American democracy. Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system. How can we recover our freedom from these giants? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has the answer: Break 'Em Up. This book is a clarion call for liberals and leftists looking to find a common cause. Teachout makes a compelling case that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issues that today's progressives care about; they drive economic inequality, harm the planet, limit the political power of average citizens, and historically-disenfranchised groups bear the brunt of their shameful and irresponsible business practices. In order to build a better future, we must eradicate monopolies from the private sector and create new safeguards that prevent new ones from seizing power. Through her expert analysis of monopolies in several sectors and their impact on courts, journalism, inequality, and politics, Teachout offers a concrete path toward thwarting these enemies of working Americans and reclaiming our democracy before it’s too late.

Download or read book America s Forgotten Majority written by Ruy Teixeira and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-01-04 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful look at the real America, dominated by America's "forgotten majority"-white working-class men and women who make up 55 percent of the voting population

Download or read book Trump s Democrats written by Stephanie Muravchik and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did hundreds of Democratic strongholds break for Donald Trump in 2016 and stay loyal to him in 2020? Looking for answers, Muravchik and Shields lived in three such “flipped” communities. There they discovered a political culture that was Trumpy long before the 45th president arrived on the national political scene. In these places, dominated by the white working-class, some of the most beloved and longest-serving Democratic leaders are themselves Trumpian—grandiose, combative, thin-skinned, and nepotistic. Indifferent to ideology, they promise to take care of “their people” by cutting deals—and corners if needed. Stressing loyalty, they often turn to family to fill critical political roles. Trump, resembling these old-style Democratic bosses, strikes a familiar and appealing figure in these communities. Although voters in “flipped” communities have often been portrayed as white supremacists, Muravchik and Shields find that their primary political allegiances are to place—not race. They will spend an extra dollar to patronize local businesses, and they think local jobs should go to their neighbors, not “foreigners” from neighboring counties—who are just as likely to be white and native-born. Unlike the Proud Boys, they take more pride in their local communities than in their skin color. Trump successfully courted these Democrats by promising to revitalize their struggling hometowns. Because these communities largely stuck with Trump in 2020, Biden won the presidency by just the thinnest of margins. Whether they will continue to support a Republican Party without Trump—or swing back to the Democrats—depends in part on which party can satisfy these locally grown political tastes and values. The party that does that will enjoy a stranglehold in national elections for years to come.

Download or read book Dangerously Divided written by Zoltan Hajnal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, more than class or any other factor, determines who wins and who loses in American democracy.