"Working class" is not an identity

People vote their identities.

FDR

"Society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests and classes of citizens. . . the multiplicity of interests. . . the multiplicity of sects."

     James Madison, Federalist No. 51

Voters want a candidate who validates and supports people like themselves, defined by race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and education. 

They don't define themselves as "workers."

Bernie Sanders raised the consciousness of Democrats. He said they had failed to address the economic distress of working Americans. The rich and powerful had gotten richer and more powerful; it was unjust and it was destroying America. Sanders said we need to bring back the FDR coalition, with policies of structural change and wealth redistribution. 

Elizabeth Warren echos it. Andrew Yang, too. People see the direction of the economy and are getting angry. They voted for Trump because they wanted a populist who would defend them against economic elites, saying need government intervention. Bring back FDR.

This blog received a comment from a Sanders supporter yesterday, which summarizes this thinking. It reads in full in yesterday's comment section, but here is a segment: 

    "Heck, I don’t care if Pete [Buttigieg] sleeps with a man if I can afford health care, my kids can afford college and there is some prospect of a brighter future as opposed to my further slide down the food chain. . . . Instead, Dems need to return to their FDR roots, throw out the neoliberal bourgeois, and offer concrete material benefits to the working class."

Maybe not. The American Dream is not to be a better paid factory worker, although that would be a welcome improvement over being a poorly paid one.

A career advisor to union officials told me that the near-universal goal of union leaders is for their children to be able to get out of the factory and do easier, more interesting work. Americans don't identify as "working class." They identify as "middle class," just like nearly everyone, so there is either one class or no class, in any case, it isn't how people think of themselves.

But people do have identity, and that is what they vote: race, religion, education, gender, sexual orientation, sect. Maybe all this talk by Sanders about a "political revolution" and by Warren about "structural change" just serves to scare people. Trump will certainly use it that way.

Professors Lilliana Mason and Julie Wronski did research that informed a quiz published in the New York Times. Their research argues that social sorting creates the real difference between Democrats and Republicans: elements of identity, not finances. CLICK 

People don't think ideologically, they say. They think in terms of who they are.

CLICK: Take the quiz

The New York Times "Quiz" predicted if a person was a Democrat or Republican by asking not about income, nor whether one thought America was on the right or wrong track nor whether one felt economic distress. Polls ask those questions, but the answers were largely predictable if one understands the demographic questions. The quiz asks: 

Race--are you Black, Hispanic, or Asian?
Are you religious?
Are you straight or homosexual?
Did you attend college?
Are you Protestant or Catholic?
Are you male or female?
Did you get a college degree?

And so on as it refined it further. Take the quiz.

This research and quiz reaffirm what other research has reported, that the most predictable test for swing voters was their level of racial resentment, not income. People have sorted themself into cultural teams and Trump succeeded in creating a white team, and especially a white male team. 

People who are white Christian, straight, male, and from a southern state are almost certainly part of a team, the red team, and Trump leads it. White Christian men may not admire Trump, or approve of him, but they understand him to be on the side of white Christian men. 

That team perceives itself to have an enemy, and the most salient one is not their rich bosses. It is the perceived threat by secular, woke liberals who disrespect their team. Leftist moral prudes are more frightening to them than are their employers.

There is a lesson for Democrats there.

Republicans have their team leader. Democratic candidate are in audition mode currently, choosing theirs. The denoted language, especially for Sanders, Warren, and Yang, is about economic injustice, but Democrats may well be evaluating what they hear based on entirely different criteria, not on the details of their plans but on the perceived character and interests of the candidate. Who does Biden connect with? Warren? Buttigieg?

Which of those people will stand up for people like themselves?