Are we really sure that that's what's been happening? The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "progressives" who chose to shift their campaign focus onto gaining more privileges for trans women, abolishing the police force, endorsing Islamic supremacist groups tale of their own victimhood, and denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy. I don't see how any of this is aimed at the working class.
duxup · 8h ago
Honestly your post sounds more like rhetroic than anything else.
Organized labor still seems supportive of left leaning candidates. If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show.
I don't buy into these ideas that <observes behavior that doesn't jive in some way> must be directly related to <pet peeve of mine>.
Voters behave in unexpected ways all the time.
rbanffy · 8h ago
> If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show.
A left-leaning candidate that has "abandoned" worker's causes is still a better prospect than a candidate that openly opposed to them.
I find it odd that so few people vote in the US - like I said, if all candidates are terrible, one is certainly less terrible and your job, as citizen, is to vote for the lesser evil to prevent the worse one to get power.
No comments yet
bryanlarsen · 8h ago
The left "abandoning" the working class is Clinton telling coal miners "I'll spend $30B on retraining you for new jobs, and building up new industry in coal mining region" vs Trump saying "I'll save your jobs".
Was Clinton "abandoning the working class"? It doesn't feel like it, but it certainly could be construed that way.
OTOH, Trump's statement was a bold faced lie. He didn't save coal mining jobs, coal mining jobs dropped significantly during his first term.
giantg2 · 8h ago
People will take unknowns over the current status. The coal regions are still severely depressed. It likely doesn't matter to those people if $30B was spent if they didn't see an improvement in their own lives from it. Even if you get retrained, you have to leave the area to get a decent job about half of the time, which many don't want.
bryanlarsen · 8h ago
Sure, Trump's lie was better than Clinton's promise. Which explains why Trump won in 2016.
But it should have lost him the votes in 2024. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
giantg2 · 7h ago
I think that depends on what Biden/Harris was promising them. If nothing really improved under Biden for them and Harris didn't have a good value proposition for them, then what was their alternative? Neither Trump nor Biden/Harris helped them, but one option is saying they will help them (or is more aligned with their values on non-economic topics).
alabastervlog · 10h ago
Where’d you get the idea they shifted to any of that whatsoever? Right wing talking heads claim those things, but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power.
palmotea · 9h ago
> but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power.
Even if that's true, those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture.
For instance, the famous "in this house we believe" yard sign (https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherpro...). "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy."
It was also pretty well documented in the 2024 postmortems that people and groups who espoused those extreme positions were very constraining on "democrats...with notable power."
alabastervlog · 9h ago
> "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy."
Reasonably? No.
gruez · 9h ago
So how was that supposed to be interpreted? "everyone should receive due process?" Why don't they just say that, instead of trying to do a motte and bailey where the sign makes an absolutist statement on immigration policy, that then gets walked back on to something anodyne?
alabastervlog · 9h ago
It's a (I agree somewhat silly) rejection of labelling people "illegals".
I assure you that very few of the people with those signs want open borders. That's a position held by almost nobody.
Back to the point: when did the democrats shift to any of these alleged positions? They didn't. It's what the opposition says they did, but they in-fact didn't.
gruez · 8h ago
>Back to the point: when did the democrats shift to any of these alleged positions? They didn't. It's what the opposition says they did, but they in-fact didn't.
That's a distinction without a difference. If Democratic voters and activists are pushing for a given position, it's cold comfort to the independent or Republican that it's not an official position of the Democratic party (whatever that might mean). Just look at Project 2025. It was produced by the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that is technically independent of the GOP. Trump even distanced himself from it during the campaign. Does that mean Democrats aren't right to worry about it, because it wasn't an official position?
alabastervlog · 7h ago
This is absurd.
Look at the things you're comparing: a misreading of a somewhat-common yard sign plus what Fox News and Mark Levin say the democrats support, versus a concerted effort by a highly influential prominent think-tank that involved so very many top folks in Trump's campaign that his statements distancing himself from it were never anything but blatant lies.
Show me something actually equivalent, and you'll have a point. Find me the most-influential think tank you can that supports stuff like "abolishing the police force" or "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". CFR? Brookings? Atlantic Council? IDK, find one. Find a policy statement on that stuff, Democrats usually put tons of policy docs on their campaign websites because they're nerds who incorrectly think normal people both can and are willing to read, so it should be well-documented. After all, the claim was that they shifted their campaign focus to that! To "abolishing the police force" (?!) and such. Not that a few individual democrats with little or no power said some things, maybe.
> That's a distinction without a difference.
Once you erase the long list of material fucking differences, sure.
> If Democratic voters and activists are pushing for a given position
ALMOST NONE ARE. The person who "deny[ies] the basic right for country to have an immigration policy" is vanishingly rare and you'll have at least as much luck finding them among the committed libertarian sorts as even the farther-left end of democrats—still not much luck, but about as much.
It's correct to say it's a problem for democrats that people think they hold these positions. It's incorrect to say it's because they in-fact do. It's because of effective propaganda.
You folks are assigning a caricature of their positions to them and then blaming them for adopting those caricatured positions. WT literal F.
gruez · 6h ago
>Look at the things you're comparing: a misreading of a somewhat-common yard sign plus what Fox News and Mark Levin say the democrats support
You're over-indexing on the influence of "Fox News and Mark Levin". Most people aren't news junkies. The whole contention is that people who aren't going out of their way to find uncharitable interpretations of "no human is illegal" will think that it's a pro-immigration message. By that I don't mean something like "we should use better names", I mean policies like unlimited migration, or even something like amnesty for all undocumented immigrants in the US. You reject this premise[1][2], but haven't really provided any justification for why that interpretation is unreasonable.
>Show me something actually equivalent, and you'll have a point. Find me the most-influential think tank you can that supports stuff like "abolishing the police force" or "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy".
>It's correct to say it's a problem for democrats that people think they hold these positions. It's incorrect to say it's because they in-fact do. It's because of effective propaganda.
>You folks are assigning a caricature of their positions to them and then blaming them for adopting those caricatured positions. WT literal F.
Again, my contention isn't that the Democratic party or left-leaning think tanks hold those positions, it's that they're poorly worded, leading independents and centrist Republicans to misinterpret their message, and pushing them away from the Democrats.
Note the original comment you replied to claims that "those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture". It says nothing about whether such positions are the official policies of the Democratic party.
alabastervlog · 5h ago
> Note the original comment you replied to claims that "those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture". It says nothing about whether such positions are the official policies of the Democratic party.
No, the claim was:
> The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "progressives" who chose to shift their campaign focus onto gaining more privileges for trans women, abolishing the police force, endorsing Islamic supremacist groups tale of their own victimhood, and denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy. I don't see how any of this is aimed at the working class.
The only one of the four claimed positions that's even arguably not a fantasy ginned up by Republican propaganda is the one about trans women. The post was blaming democrats for taking positions that they did not take.
ggariepy · 3h ago
The hell it isn't reasonable.
palmotea · 9h ago
> Reasonably? No.
Sorry, yes. Given the political charge around the term "illegal," the sign repudiates the status of "illegal immigrant," and if you can't have illegal immigrants (or whatever euphemism of the day is), you can't have an immigration policy.
dakr · 6h ago
An act can be illegal. I don't see how a person can be illegal. Being in a country illegally is an act, not an inherent property of a person.
Trying to say a person is illegal seems like a non-starter for useful reasoning because it seems to absolve people of responsibility for their actions, since nothing can be done about who a person inherently is.
alabastervlog · 9h ago
This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all.
palmotea · 9h ago
> This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all.
No it isn't. It's what you need to interpret the sign. It's not list of literal statements statement of clear positions, but a thing that plays off vibes and associations to send a political message without being super direct (at least when it was new).
But if you think my interpretation absurd (which it is not), what you you think "no human is illegal" means, in the context of the sign?
The problem may be that the wide use of these kinds of vague signals and slogans invited misinterpretation.
alabastervlog · 9h ago
See my explanation a couple posts away. It means the thing that many on the left often express on this topic, not the thing that almost none ever do.
[EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.
gruez · 8h ago
>[EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.
I don't get it. Are you conceding that independents and Republicans might genuinely believe that "No human is illegal" means all migration should be legal? By "genuinely believe ", I don't mean a maximally uncharitable interpretation either, but at the same time I also don't expect them to go out of their way to figure out exactly what is meant by "No human is illegal".
Izkata · 8h ago
The only context where "illegal" was ever used to describe a person was "illegal immigrant" (or the older term, "illegal alien"). It was explicitly about immigration policy.
alabastervlog · 7h ago
Yes, in that context. It was extremely common to shorthand that to "illegals", as in, "Bob says he's gotta hire illegals or he can't find anyone who'll shingle houses for him", or, "I don't know why they can't mine the border to stop the illegals" (I guess I can assign that as a position the Republicans "shifted" to and then blame them for it since I've heard multiple actual Republican voters say it, no interpretation required, they literally stated they want a minefield on the border? That'd be more connected to reality than the rest of this nonsense thread).
Democrats have been pushing back on the language of that, because "illegals" had plainly become a slur and tool for othering and dehumanizing. I think democrats focus on that horse-shit way too much—though, then again, shifting language that way as that kind of political tool is something Republicans do and had done in this case, so maybe I'm wrong and they're right for trying to stop it—but that's what the sign's about, it's a topic they've had a bug up their ass about for like twenty damn years.
Izkata · 7h ago
That doesn't fit with how they've started trying to replace the term "illegal immigrant" with "undocumented immigrant".
alabastervlog · 7h ago
You wrote "doesn't fit" and then described something that fits entirely. I'm not following.
AStonesThrow · 9h ago
There are many ridiculous debates around immigration, and the trouble with public discourse is that it cannot be too, too specific or detailed about the demands/requirements of voters, and I think we know that if it were specific or detailed, those details would look extremely racist, xenophobic, classist or a combination thereof.
Many people on both sides of the aisle have cried out for "immigration reform", even "comprehensive immigration reform". What do they mean by that? We've seen various keywords fly by, like "amnesty" or "quotas" or something.
So why do we need that reform? Are too many domestic jobs occupied by foreigners? Are illegals committing violent/sexual crimes at an alarming rate? Are foreigners dangerous to national security or stability? Which foreigners and why?
People protested the so-called "Muslim ban" but in reality, all immigration policy must differentiate among regions and nations and allocate resources/quotas appropriately.
People on the left can go down to "The Wall" and give "humanitarian aid" to immigrants who may "die in the desert" but that's not really where the immigration crisis is [if indeed there is one at all,] because most "illegals" are people who got here legally and then ... overstayed their visa for some reason.
I believe that immigration is just another wedge issue and talking point, without enough substance presented to the public for us to make real decisions about it. Real immigration policy is complex, nuanced, and someone in Congress is going to need to stack up a "Reform Bill" the size of Obamacare and then pass it, so that we'll know what's in it.
gruez · 8h ago
>and I think we know that if it were specific or detailed, those details would look extremely racist, xenophobic, classist or a combination thereof.
Really? This time around the discourse around Trump's immigration polices seem to be based around practicalities (eg. American competitiveness, impact on the labor market) rather than principles. Even in the cases where it's based on principles, they're principles like due process rather than "-isms" you listed.
alabastervlog · 7h ago
Trump's rhetoric around illegal immigration has mostly been about how tons of them are violent criminals, about reducing fentanyl smuggling (that's overwhelmingly done by US citizens for obvious reasons, but whatever), "invasions", and gangs, no less so in this campaign than the last. Effects on the labor market get some attention, but nothing like those other aspects.
[EDIT] From the Trump campaign's "2024 GOP Platform" doc:
----
1. Secure the Border
Republicans will restore every Border Policy of the Trump administration and halt all releases of Illegal Aliens into the
interior. We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement,
and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border. We will use all resources needed to stop the Invasion—
including moving thousands of Troops currently stationed overseas to our own Southern Border. We will deploy the U.S.
Navy to impose a full Fentanyl Blockade on the waters of our Region—boarding and inspecting ships to look for fentanyl and
fentanyl precursors. Before we defend the Borders of Foreign Countries, we must first secure the Border of our Country.
2. Enforce Immigration Laws
Republicans will strengthen ICE, increase penalties for illegal entry and overstaying Visas, and reinstate “Remain in
Mexico” and other Policies that helped reduce Illegal Immigration by historic lows in President Trump’s first term. We will
also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from
the United States, ending the scourge of Illegal Alien gang violence once and for all. We will bring back the Travel Ban, and
use Title 42 to end the child trafficking crisis by returning all trafficked children to their families in their Home Countries
immediately.
3. Begin Largest Deportation Program in American History
President Trump and Republicans will reverse the Democrats’ destructive Open Borders Policies that have allowed criminal
gangs and Illegal Aliens from around the World to roam the United States without consequences. The Republican Party is
committed to sending Illegal Aliens back home and removing those who have violated our Laws.
4. Strict Vetting
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of
America. Those who join our Country must love our Country. We will use extreme vetting to ensure that jihadists and jihadist
sympathizers are not admitted.
5. Stop Sanctuary Cities
Republicans will cut federal Funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that release dangerous Illegal Alien criminals onto our
streets, rather than handing them over to ICE. We will require local cooperation with Federal Immigration Enforcement.
6. Ensure Our Legal Immigration System Puts American Workers First
Republicans will prioritize Merit-based immigration, ensuring those admitted to our Country contribute positively to our
Society and Economy, and never become a drain on Public Resources. We will end Chain Migration, and put American
Workers first!
----
This basically fits with his proxies' rhetoric on e.g. Fox News, and his points at rallies: a little about the jobs aspect, but most of it's about how dangerous illegal immigrants are.
gruez · 6h ago
>Trump's rhetoric around illegal immigration has mostly been about how tons of them are violent criminals, about reducing fentanyl smuggling (that's overwhelmingly done by US citizens for obvious reasons, but whatever), "invasions", and gangs, no less so in this campaign than the last. Effects on the labor market get some attention, but nothing like those other aspects.
I meant the discourse justifying pushback from the left, after the policies were enacted.
alabastervlog · 6h ago
I follow now! Sorry, I can read good, I promise.
Yes, the economic consequences (long-term to research and researcher-training and the industries that rely on them on the one end, and shorter term to e.g. farm and construction labor on the other) are definitely a highlight of democratic rhetoric against Trump's immigration enforcement regime & priorities, as far as "why we shouldn't do this", second perhaps only to matters of due process now that those have been forced to the fore (which is more of a, "regardless of what we're trying to do, this is an illegal way to go about it").
I suppose the third pillar of the push-back, maybe also more-prominent than the economic argument now that vague concerns have become concrete, is on humanitarian grounds, resisting specifically deporting people who're likely to come to harm if they are sent back, and shipping people to foreign prisons controlled by states with poor human rights records—of course this is heavily tied up with the whole due-process thing, since that's key to settling whether these sorts of claims have merit, if one cares whether they have merit.
It is true that Democrats often claim that a big part of why Republicans are so eager to crack down on illegal immigrants even at the expense of waves hand at paragraphs above is due to various -isms and -phobias, but you're right that I don't see a lot of "the reason we shouldn't do this is because it's racist/xenophobic", but rather "we shouldn't do this because [list of practical and humanitarian reasons]" (perhaps followed up by, "the reason the Republicans want to do this is racism and xenophobia", which I think is reductive and not very useful but is at least somewhat more-accurate than the opposing framing of motivation as, "democrats actively want, specifically, violent foreign criminals in our cities")
gruez · 10h ago
>but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power.
Maybe they're not "governing as if it’s true", but their statements certainly do. See for instance, the "Kamala is for they/them" attack ad? Granted, it was an attack ad and Kamala moderated her stance in the 2024 election, but her statements in 2020 was far left of the average voter, which was why it was why it was so effective.
unpopularopp · 6h ago
Funnily I know more ultra-religious hispanic and asian people than whites. Somehow the Democratic Party thinks that minority = progressive.
mjburgess · 10h ago
> “The left,” Tabellini concludes, “has underestimated the fact that culture can matter more than income. But as long as it insists on talking only about inequality, without addressing the identity theme, it will continue to lose out among its own former constituency.”
Is an interesting conclusion, since that seems askew from the kind of left which has predominated recently. Though it may amount to analysis of the modern left which says that they permit cultural identity to be the most salient political factor if you're one of their favoured "oppressed identities" whereas, if you arent, then you have to be analysed in purely economic terms.
I'm not entirely convinced by the analysis. Is a politics of identity displacing traditional "economic politics" -- or is it that economic politics has become a matter of identity? Eg., consider that 20-year-olds today face a society economically designed to privilege certain identities through corporate affirmative actions and the like. Policies who could only plausibly morally target the older generations where salary gaps exist -- yet have a disproportionate impact on younger groups with no such disparities (or the converse, as in the UK where young women slighly out-earn young men).
And eg., do people feel immigration has created economic deprivation at home (and so on) -- is all this just not a displaced class analysis?
We might assume not because, by economic analysis, immigration cannot really explain the "economic concerns" which are attributed to it -- but do the public know this? Or is the failure of the welfare state, of popular government policy and regulation really just misattributed to immigration (or, to these "other" identities)? Is this just a matter of spurious correlation: as western birthrates plummet, goverments are heavily endebted and unable to provide high quality services, the public observe increased immigration?
This analysis fails to realise the degree to which these "identities" have become specailisations of economic classes by policy, law and accident.
giantg2 · 8h ago
I don't see this as new. It's been more urban vs rural than money vs poor for as long as I can remember. Maybe it was different when union's were a bigger topic 50+ years ago.
soared · 10h ago
I see this as incredibly challenging for the American Democratic Party to overcome. A conservative is very clearly defined and makes up a huge portion of the country: white and religious. The inverse of this (multicultural, non-religious or non-Christian, many different races/nationalities) is much more challenging to speak to and motivate.
A republican ad can cast a standard white nuclear family wearing some blue jeans and their base will love it. Democrats don’t have a super obvious cast (and message).
tim333 · 5h ago
They could go
>The "American Dream" is a deeply ingrained national ethos in the United States, referring to the belief that individuals have the opportunity to improve their lives and achieve success through hard work and initiative, regardless of their background...
with various success stories. The dems tend to focus more on victimhood which doesn't work well.
unpopularopp · 6h ago
Funnily I know more ultra-religious hispanic and asian people than whites. Somehow the Democratic Party thinks that minority = progressive.
blargthorwars · 9h ago
Here in the Pacific Northwest, it is not just white and religious. Asian, Black, and Hispanic males are increasingly moving away from the Dems.
mystraline · 10h ago
From the article:
> “The left,” Tabellini concludes, “has underestimated the fact that culture can matter more than income. But as long as it insists on talking only about inequality, without addressing the identity theme, it will continue to lose out among its own former constituency.”
In my experiences, the Left / Democrats have abandoned the wage workers and labor quite along time ago. The justification was that Republicans catered to Big Business, along with their near-endless coffers of money. Democrats had to cater to their own groups that had money, and labor was NOT one of them.
Another money issue is that, in general, democrats tax the 50%-99% heavier to redistribute to the 0%-50% class. Republicans undo that. Yet nobody touches that 1% at the top, so real effective changes are really never seen, and haven't been seen since FDR.
Basically, I think culture has taken over income as a major political point because both politician groups have been able to phase it out by intentionally refusing to address it. Something else took hold, and that's identity politics.
If people saw massive, rapid change from taxing the 1% and real monetary gains quickly, identity would be shoved by the wayside quite fast.
ImJamal · 9h ago
> Yet nobody touches that 1% at the top, so real effective changes are really never seen, and haven't been seen since FDR
There could be some movement on this. Trump has suggested a 2.6% increase on the top 0.2%
Income tax. So the actually-rich would continue to pay rates on par with all but the very poorest wage earners (but actually even lower than that—no FICA)
emorning3 · 9h ago
Trump will eventually take every side of every issue.
Spooky23 · 10h ago
This is more about the shifting of media platforms from mass broadcast to targeted messaging to tiny slices of demographics.
It's not unique to the right, although the right wing messaging is simpler and more broadly applicable. Progressives in recent years like to characterize everything as discriminatory. Every issue from arresting criminals, to awarding contracts to schooling is delivered through that lens. The reactionary message is a variant of the effective Bill Clinton style "I feel your pain", with the prescription that you need more pain to get to some nebulous future where your problems go away. The difference is that the progressive message is delivered to the slice of demographic and resonates mostly there. The reactionary message is broadly appealing to everyone's anxiety -- even people who dislike MAGA often identify with the problems identified.
It about the delivery. The best example of this is the much-maligned (in the right wing space) 1619 project. Nobody actually reads books, so the soundbites matter, and by tying the work to the relatively narrow racial component in those soundbites, it weaponized the topic for racists. Those MAGA white guys need to have the irony shoved in their face. That the same class of rich aristocrats who pushed their indentured servant ancestors to the periphery of civilization, then conscripted them for the freedom to own other humans to suppress their wages, and that they have more in common with the decendents of slaves than some land barons.
But that didn't happen, and the messaging picked up and hammered by the right is: "Those" people (pick your villain) want to steal your heritage and hate everything that is America. Obviously, that resonates with alot of people.
ggariepy · 2h ago
My take: the people voting for right wing candidates don't believe in "redistribution" which IMO is not a proper function of government. The left really wants to take the nation's wealth and give it to people it deems to be deserving of it; the people voting for the right wing disagree wholeheartedly. As do I. Get your hands out of our pockets.
vmchale · 10h ago
>The heart of the model is simple and radical: people choose the identity they feel is most relevant to the social conflicts of the moment.
A lot of this is in Kondylis (30+ years old)
rbanffy · 8h ago
Not sure why this was flagged. It's an interesting discussion about an important topic, and the discussion is quite civil (at least until now).
Edit: now it makes sense. It's getting worse, in particular downvoting. We still need to learn to discuss difficult topics in a civil manner.
dgfitz · 10h ago
I think the only thing that doesn't quite make sense to me:
> The model takes into account the fact that parties are historically connected to specific social groups: the right with the upper classes and religious conservatives, the left with workers and progressives.
I would posit that both the right and the left have "upper classes" and "workers"
The last paragraph even says:
> “The left,” Tabellini concludes, “has underestimated the fact that culture can matter more than income.
Seems like mixed messaging.
johnea · 2h ago
This seems like a pretty accurate summary to me.
Both the "right" and "left" are now more defined by identity politics than economic class. My impression is that both of these "identities" have been promoted and popularized by the two main US political parties.
I call these two identities: wing-nut and woke-nut.
Whenever you find that you are in total agreement with one group, and in total disagreement with the "opposing" group, you will find yourself in a state of having completely abdicated your individual agency. You are now a part of group think.
As such, I've been a detractor of "identity politics" since it's emergence as a dominant US social force.
With "identity" the party no longer has to focus on benefiting the constituents, it can rely on pursuing virtue posturing. This is true for both parties.
But, "identity" is a purely abstract entity. It exists only in a person's mind. "Economic class", on the other hand is determined by forces and conditions external to an individual's identity selection.
This means that regardless of a person's choice of "identity", their "class" remains unchanged.
And under both Clinton and the cheato, the working class is abandoned by both parties.
Those least educated, and most vulnerable to online misinformation, will be the most disadvantaged by this, regardless of their "left" vs "right" identity choice.
This is great for both parties, because it entrenches their incumbent position, without requiring material progress for their constituencies.
diego_moita · 9h ago
I find interesting that most comments here are about the Democrats.
However I should point that this is not an American-only issue. Poor people are strong supporters of the AfD in Germany, Bolsonaro in Southern Brazil, the National Rally in France, Erdogan in Turkey, Bukele in El Salvador, Orban in Hungary, etc. On the last Canadian election a great part of the votes lost by the socialist NDP went to the Conservatives, not to the Liberals.
And, also, is not new. Mussolini, Franco, Vargas (Brazil), Peron (Argentina) and other fascist dictators had a strong support from poor people. Gramsci complained a lot about it.
My take: what poor people like in these strong men is a feeling of stability and security. They all promise to be a guardian about some sort of external threat: immigrants, criminals, minorities, etc.
Poor people are scared and they desperately want stability.
gruez · 9h ago
>On the last Canadian election a great part of the votes lost by the socialist NDP went to the Conservatives, not to the Liberals.
Source? All the accounts I've read say that they fled to the liberals because they were afraid of the conservatives winning.
I stress: it wasn't all of them, it was a great part. Maybe the majority went Liberal, but still a great part went Conservative.
louwrentius · 10h ago
The culture wars are just a manufactured distraction.
The true goal is what is now unfolding in the USA: the rich take over the government and democracy will be destroyed.
Congrats Peter Thiel. You won.
Meanwhile the temporary embarrassed millionaires of HN will still defend what is happening, they still think they will somehow come out on top. They think they won’t get hurt.
I wonder if I will witnesses a turnaround for the better in my lifetime.
jmclnx · 10h ago
The rich became owners of the US during the Reagan years. The just found a way to keep in power by getting the racists to vote via the culture wars.
Now the goal is to raid the Social Security Trust Fund.
keernan · 5h ago
>The rich became owners of the US during the Reagan years.
You don't think the rich were owners of the US at the inception of the constitution? They wrote the damn thing:
people of color couldn't vote;
women couldn't vote; and
poor whites couldn't vote
taylodl · 10h ago
If your net worth is under $100 million, then you're getting hurt. Meaning, HN millionaires will find out in the eyes of the billionaire ruling class, they're just worthless rabble to be gutted and consumed, not deserving of any rights or dignity. The Right takes the prosperity gospel to heart.
austin-cheney · 10h ago
This is a commonly known social phenomenon. High intelligent people gravitate towards subjects of policy and low intelligent people gravitate towards subjects of identity. High income social classes tend to contain a higher mix of high intelligent people than low income social classes.
EDIT
Ironically, as this comment receives down votes the comments rising to the top resolve to factors of identity.
evanjrowley · 9h ago
You're being downvoted because your comment is rhetorical and blind to the fact that your policy-focused high income social classes are just non-traditional identities.
austin-cheney · 9h ago
I am being down voted because it seems to make people sad. What do the measures say? This is something that has been researched to death in multiple countries multiple times through history. Feeling sad and ignoring the reality just means you are playing their game leveled against you.
evanjrowley · 9h ago
As with most social science, the measures show correlation and not causation. What they "say" is an opinion that has confirmed your biases.
austin-cheney · 9h ago
In this case causation is irrelevant, because its clearly known. The goal is get the dollars, get the votes, with the causation being attitudes. Correlation is all that matters, because its how they modify attitudes to get what they want.
louwrentius · 10h ago
Implying that low income people are not as intelligent as high income people is…
Not very intelligent.
That’s the real irony.
austin-cheney · 9h ago
It does not matter what your or my opinions say. What do the numbers say? We can be sad and hold hands about it, but that hardly seems like a solution to the problem.
I don't know how you could read this article and walk away with the conclusion you have. This is the actual conclusion:
Finally, the relationship between intelligence and political attitudes is most likely not fixed in some simple way, but probably changes across time and context.
austin-cheney · 8h ago
You are confusing the subjectivity of political subjects from the objectivity of measured behaviors that achieves those political subjects.
Organized labor still seems supportive of left leaning candidates. If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show.
I don't buy into these ideas that <observes behavior that doesn't jive in some way> must be directly related to <pet peeve of mine>.
Voters behave in unexpected ways all the time.
A left-leaning candidate that has "abandoned" worker's causes is still a better prospect than a candidate that openly opposed to them.
I find it odd that so few people vote in the US - like I said, if all candidates are terrible, one is certainly less terrible and your job, as citizen, is to vote for the lesser evil to prevent the worse one to get power.
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Was Clinton "abandoning the working class"? It doesn't feel like it, but it certainly could be construed that way.
OTOH, Trump's statement was a bold faced lie. He didn't save coal mining jobs, coal mining jobs dropped significantly during his first term.
But it should have lost him the votes in 2024. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Even if that's true, those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture.
For instance, the famous "in this house we believe" yard sign (https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherpro...). "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy."
It was also pretty well documented in the 2024 postmortems that people and groups who espoused those extreme positions were very constraining on "democrats...with notable power."
Reasonably? No.
I assure you that very few of the people with those signs want open borders. That's a position held by almost nobody.
Back to the point: when did the democrats shift to any of these alleged positions? They didn't. It's what the opposition says they did, but they in-fact didn't.
That's a distinction without a difference. If Democratic voters and activists are pushing for a given position, it's cold comfort to the independent or Republican that it's not an official position of the Democratic party (whatever that might mean). Just look at Project 2025. It was produced by the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that is technically independent of the GOP. Trump even distanced himself from it during the campaign. Does that mean Democrats aren't right to worry about it, because it wasn't an official position?
Look at the things you're comparing: a misreading of a somewhat-common yard sign plus what Fox News and Mark Levin say the democrats support, versus a concerted effort by a highly influential prominent think-tank that involved so very many top folks in Trump's campaign that his statements distancing himself from it were never anything but blatant lies.
Show me something actually equivalent, and you'll have a point. Find me the most-influential think tank you can that supports stuff like "abolishing the police force" or "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". CFR? Brookings? Atlantic Council? IDK, find one. Find a policy statement on that stuff, Democrats usually put tons of policy docs on their campaign websites because they're nerds who incorrectly think normal people both can and are willing to read, so it should be well-documented. After all, the claim was that they shifted their campaign focus to that! To "abolishing the police force" (?!) and such. Not that a few individual democrats with little or no power said some things, maybe.
> That's a distinction without a difference.
Once you erase the long list of material fucking differences, sure.
> If Democratic voters and activists are pushing for a given position
ALMOST NONE ARE. The person who "deny[ies] the basic right for country to have an immigration policy" is vanishingly rare and you'll have at least as much luck finding them among the committed libertarian sorts as even the farther-left end of democrats—still not much luck, but about as much.
It's correct to say it's a problem for democrats that people think they hold these positions. It's incorrect to say it's because they in-fact do. It's because of effective propaganda.
You folks are assigning a caricature of their positions to them and then blaming them for adopting those caricatured positions. WT literal F.
You're over-indexing on the influence of "Fox News and Mark Levin". Most people aren't news junkies. The whole contention is that people who aren't going out of their way to find uncharitable interpretations of "no human is illegal" will think that it's a pro-immigration message. By that I don't mean something like "we should use better names", I mean policies like unlimited migration, or even something like amnesty for all undocumented immigrants in the US. You reject this premise[1][2], but haven't really provided any justification for why that interpretation is unreasonable.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43973117.
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43973295
>Show me something actually equivalent, and you'll have a point. Find me the most-influential think tank you can that supports stuff like "abolishing the police force" or "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy".
>It's correct to say it's a problem for democrats that people think they hold these positions. It's incorrect to say it's because they in-fact do. It's because of effective propaganda.
>You folks are assigning a caricature of their positions to them and then blaming them for adopting those caricatured positions. WT literal F.
Again, my contention isn't that the Democratic party or left-leaning think tanks hold those positions, it's that they're poorly worded, leading independents and centrist Republicans to misinterpret their message, and pushing them away from the Democrats.
Note the original comment you replied to claims that "those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture". It says nothing about whether such positions are the official policies of the Democratic party.
No, the claim was:
> The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "progressives" who chose to shift their campaign focus onto gaining more privileges for trans women, abolishing the police force, endorsing Islamic supremacist groups tale of their own victimhood, and denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy. I don't see how any of this is aimed at the working class.
The only one of the four claimed positions that's even arguably not a fantasy ginned up by Republican propaganda is the one about trans women. The post was blaming democrats for taking positions that they did not take.
Sorry, yes. Given the political charge around the term "illegal," the sign repudiates the status of "illegal immigrant," and if you can't have illegal immigrants (or whatever euphemism of the day is), you can't have an immigration policy.
Trying to say a person is illegal seems like a non-starter for useful reasoning because it seems to absolve people of responsibility for their actions, since nothing can be done about who a person inherently is.
No it isn't. It's what you need to interpret the sign. It's not list of literal statements statement of clear positions, but a thing that plays off vibes and associations to send a political message without being super direct (at least when it was new).
But if you think my interpretation absurd (which it is not), what you you think "no human is illegal" means, in the context of the sign?
The problem may be that the wide use of these kinds of vague signals and slogans invited misinterpretation.
[EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.
I don't get it. Are you conceding that independents and Republicans might genuinely believe that "No human is illegal" means all migration should be legal? By "genuinely believe ", I don't mean a maximally uncharitable interpretation either, but at the same time I also don't expect them to go out of their way to figure out exactly what is meant by "No human is illegal".
Democrats have been pushing back on the language of that, because "illegals" had plainly become a slur and tool for othering and dehumanizing. I think democrats focus on that horse-shit way too much—though, then again, shifting language that way as that kind of political tool is something Republicans do and had done in this case, so maybe I'm wrong and they're right for trying to stop it—but that's what the sign's about, it's a topic they've had a bug up their ass about for like twenty damn years.
Many people on both sides of the aisle have cried out for "immigration reform", even "comprehensive immigration reform". What do they mean by that? We've seen various keywords fly by, like "amnesty" or "quotas" or something.
So why do we need that reform? Are too many domestic jobs occupied by foreigners? Are illegals committing violent/sexual crimes at an alarming rate? Are foreigners dangerous to national security or stability? Which foreigners and why?
People protested the so-called "Muslim ban" but in reality, all immigration policy must differentiate among regions and nations and allocate resources/quotas appropriately.
People on the left can go down to "The Wall" and give "humanitarian aid" to immigrants who may "die in the desert" but that's not really where the immigration crisis is [if indeed there is one at all,] because most "illegals" are people who got here legally and then ... overstayed their visa for some reason.
I believe that immigration is just another wedge issue and talking point, without enough substance presented to the public for us to make real decisions about it. Real immigration policy is complex, nuanced, and someone in Congress is going to need to stack up a "Reform Bill" the size of Obamacare and then pass it, so that we'll know what's in it.
Really? This time around the discourse around Trump's immigration polices seem to be based around practicalities (eg. American competitiveness, impact on the labor market) rather than principles. Even in the cases where it's based on principles, they're principles like due process rather than "-isms" you listed.
[EDIT] From the Trump campaign's "2024 GOP Platform" doc:
----
1. Secure the Border
Republicans will restore every Border Policy of the Trump administration and halt all releases of Illegal Aliens into the interior. We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement, and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border. We will use all resources needed to stop the Invasion— including moving thousands of Troops currently stationed overseas to our own Southern Border. We will deploy the U.S. Navy to impose a full Fentanyl Blockade on the waters of our Region—boarding and inspecting ships to look for fentanyl and fentanyl precursors. Before we defend the Borders of Foreign Countries, we must first secure the Border of our Country.
2. Enforce Immigration Laws
Republicans will strengthen ICE, increase penalties for illegal entry and overstaying Visas, and reinstate “Remain in Mexico” and other Policies that helped reduce Illegal Immigration by historic lows in President Trump’s first term. We will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of Illegal Alien gang violence once and for all. We will bring back the Travel Ban, and use Title 42 to end the child trafficking crisis by returning all trafficked children to their families in their Home Countries immediately.
3. Begin Largest Deportation Program in American History
President Trump and Republicans will reverse the Democrats’ destructive Open Borders Policies that have allowed criminal gangs and Illegal Aliens from around the World to roam the United States without consequences. The Republican Party is committed to sending Illegal Aliens back home and removing those who have violated our Laws.
4. Strict Vetting
Republicans will use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America. Those who join our Country must love our Country. We will use extreme vetting to ensure that jihadists and jihadist sympathizers are not admitted.
5. Stop Sanctuary Cities
Republicans will cut federal Funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that release dangerous Illegal Alien criminals onto our streets, rather than handing them over to ICE. We will require local cooperation with Federal Immigration Enforcement.
6. Ensure Our Legal Immigration System Puts American Workers First
Republicans will prioritize Merit-based immigration, ensuring those admitted to our Country contribute positively to our Society and Economy, and never become a drain on Public Resources. We will end Chain Migration, and put American Workers first!
----
This basically fits with his proxies' rhetoric on e.g. Fox News, and his points at rallies: a little about the jobs aspect, but most of it's about how dangerous illegal immigrants are.
I meant the discourse justifying pushback from the left, after the policies were enacted.
Yes, the economic consequences (long-term to research and researcher-training and the industries that rely on them on the one end, and shorter term to e.g. farm and construction labor on the other) are definitely a highlight of democratic rhetoric against Trump's immigration enforcement regime & priorities, as far as "why we shouldn't do this", second perhaps only to matters of due process now that those have been forced to the fore (which is more of a, "regardless of what we're trying to do, this is an illegal way to go about it").
I suppose the third pillar of the push-back, maybe also more-prominent than the economic argument now that vague concerns have become concrete, is on humanitarian grounds, resisting specifically deporting people who're likely to come to harm if they are sent back, and shipping people to foreign prisons controlled by states with poor human rights records—of course this is heavily tied up with the whole due-process thing, since that's key to settling whether these sorts of claims have merit, if one cares whether they have merit.
It is true that Democrats often claim that a big part of why Republicans are so eager to crack down on illegal immigrants even at the expense of waves hand at paragraphs above is due to various -isms and -phobias, but you're right that I don't see a lot of "the reason we shouldn't do this is because it's racist/xenophobic", but rather "we shouldn't do this because [list of practical and humanitarian reasons]" (perhaps followed up by, "the reason the Republicans want to do this is racism and xenophobia", which I think is reductive and not very useful but is at least somewhat more-accurate than the opposing framing of motivation as, "democrats actively want, specifically, violent foreign criminals in our cities")
Maybe they're not "governing as if it’s true", but their statements certainly do. See for instance, the "Kamala is for they/them" attack ad? Granted, it was an attack ad and Kamala moderated her stance in the 2024 election, but her statements in 2020 was far left of the average voter, which was why it was why it was so effective.
Is an interesting conclusion, since that seems askew from the kind of left which has predominated recently. Though it may amount to analysis of the modern left which says that they permit cultural identity to be the most salient political factor if you're one of their favoured "oppressed identities" whereas, if you arent, then you have to be analysed in purely economic terms.
I'm not entirely convinced by the analysis. Is a politics of identity displacing traditional "economic politics" -- or is it that economic politics has become a matter of identity? Eg., consider that 20-year-olds today face a society economically designed to privilege certain identities through corporate affirmative actions and the like. Policies who could only plausibly morally target the older generations where salary gaps exist -- yet have a disproportionate impact on younger groups with no such disparities (or the converse, as in the UK where young women slighly out-earn young men).
And eg., do people feel immigration has created economic deprivation at home (and so on) -- is all this just not a displaced class analysis?
We might assume not because, by economic analysis, immigration cannot really explain the "economic concerns" which are attributed to it -- but do the public know this? Or is the failure of the welfare state, of popular government policy and regulation really just misattributed to immigration (or, to these "other" identities)? Is this just a matter of spurious correlation: as western birthrates plummet, goverments are heavily endebted and unable to provide high quality services, the public observe increased immigration?
This analysis fails to realise the degree to which these "identities" have become specailisations of economic classes by policy, law and accident.
A republican ad can cast a standard white nuclear family wearing some blue jeans and their base will love it. Democrats don’t have a super obvious cast (and message).
>The "American Dream" is a deeply ingrained national ethos in the United States, referring to the belief that individuals have the opportunity to improve their lives and achieve success through hard work and initiative, regardless of their background...
with various success stories. The dems tend to focus more on victimhood which doesn't work well.
> “The left,” Tabellini concludes, “has underestimated the fact that culture can matter more than income. But as long as it insists on talking only about inequality, without addressing the identity theme, it will continue to lose out among its own former constituency.”
In my experiences, the Left / Democrats have abandoned the wage workers and labor quite along time ago. The justification was that Republicans catered to Big Business, along with their near-endless coffers of money. Democrats had to cater to their own groups that had money, and labor was NOT one of them.
Another money issue is that, in general, democrats tax the 50%-99% heavier to redistribute to the 0%-50% class. Republicans undo that. Yet nobody touches that 1% at the top, so real effective changes are really never seen, and haven't been seen since FDR.
Basically, I think culture has taken over income as a major political point because both politician groups have been able to phase it out by intentionally refusing to address it. Something else took hold, and that's identity politics.
If people saw massive, rapid change from taxing the 1% and real monetary gains quickly, identity would be shoved by the wayside quite fast.
There could be some movement on this. Trump has suggested a 2.6% increase on the top 0.2%
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathangoldman/2025/05/09/3-key-...
It's not unique to the right, although the right wing messaging is simpler and more broadly applicable. Progressives in recent years like to characterize everything as discriminatory. Every issue from arresting criminals, to awarding contracts to schooling is delivered through that lens. The reactionary message is a variant of the effective Bill Clinton style "I feel your pain", with the prescription that you need more pain to get to some nebulous future where your problems go away. The difference is that the progressive message is delivered to the slice of demographic and resonates mostly there. The reactionary message is broadly appealing to everyone's anxiety -- even people who dislike MAGA often identify with the problems identified.
It about the delivery. The best example of this is the much-maligned (in the right wing space) 1619 project. Nobody actually reads books, so the soundbites matter, and by tying the work to the relatively narrow racial component in those soundbites, it weaponized the topic for racists. Those MAGA white guys need to have the irony shoved in their face. That the same class of rich aristocrats who pushed their indentured servant ancestors to the periphery of civilization, then conscripted them for the freedom to own other humans to suppress their wages, and that they have more in common with the decendents of slaves than some land barons.
But that didn't happen, and the messaging picked up and hammered by the right is: "Those" people (pick your villain) want to steal your heritage and hate everything that is America. Obviously, that resonates with alot of people.
A lot of this is in Kondylis (30+ years old)
Edit: now it makes sense. It's getting worse, in particular downvoting. We still need to learn to discuss difficult topics in a civil manner.
> The model takes into account the fact that parties are historically connected to specific social groups: the right with the upper classes and religious conservatives, the left with workers and progressives.
I would posit that both the right and the left have "upper classes" and "workers"
The last paragraph even says:
> “The left,” Tabellini concludes, “has underestimated the fact that culture can matter more than income.
Seems like mixed messaging.
Both the "right" and "left" are now more defined by identity politics than economic class. My impression is that both of these "identities" have been promoted and popularized by the two main US political parties.
I call these two identities: wing-nut and woke-nut.
Whenever you find that you are in total agreement with one group, and in total disagreement with the "opposing" group, you will find yourself in a state of having completely abdicated your individual agency. You are now a part of group think.
As such, I've been a detractor of "identity politics" since it's emergence as a dominant US social force.
With "identity" the party no longer has to focus on benefiting the constituents, it can rely on pursuing virtue posturing. This is true for both parties.
But, "identity" is a purely abstract entity. It exists only in a person's mind. "Economic class", on the other hand is determined by forces and conditions external to an individual's identity selection.
This means that regardless of a person's choice of "identity", their "class" remains unchanged.
And under both Clinton and the cheato, the working class is abandoned by both parties.
Those least educated, and most vulnerable to online misinformation, will be the most disadvantaged by this, regardless of their "left" vs "right" identity choice.
This is great for both parties, because it entrenches their incumbent position, without requiring material progress for their constituencies.
However I should point that this is not an American-only issue. Poor people are strong supporters of the AfD in Germany, Bolsonaro in Southern Brazil, the National Rally in France, Erdogan in Turkey, Bukele in El Salvador, Orban in Hungary, etc. On the last Canadian election a great part of the votes lost by the socialist NDP went to the Conservatives, not to the Liberals.
And, also, is not new. Mussolini, Franco, Vargas (Brazil), Peron (Argentina) and other fascist dictators had a strong support from poor people. Gramsci complained a lot about it.
My take: what poor people like in these strong men is a feeling of stability and security. They all promise to be a guardian about some sort of external threat: immigrants, criminals, minorities, etc.
Poor people are scared and they desperately want stability.
Source? All the accounts I've read say that they fled to the liberals because they were afraid of the conservatives winning.
I stress: it wasn't all of them, it was a great part. Maybe the majority went Liberal, but still a great part went Conservative.
The true goal is what is now unfolding in the USA: the rich take over the government and democracy will be destroyed.
Congrats Peter Thiel. You won.
Meanwhile the temporary embarrassed millionaires of HN will still defend what is happening, they still think they will somehow come out on top. They think they won’t get hurt.
I wonder if I will witnesses a turnaround for the better in my lifetime.
Now the goal is to raid the Social Security Trust Fund.
You don't think the rich were owners of the US at the inception of the constitution? They wrote the damn thing:
people of color couldn't vote; women couldn't vote; and poor whites couldn't vote
EDIT
Ironically, as this comment receives down votes the comments rising to the top resolve to factors of identity.
Not very intelligent.
That’s the real irony.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody-els...
Finally, the relationship between intelligence and political attitudes is most likely not fixed in some simple way, but probably changes across time and context.
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