White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America by Joan C. Williams

White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

by Joan C. Williams

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Society & Culture

Economics matters to working-class voters. That said, Joan C. Williams's case is that dignity and respect matter too, and that a professional-managerial elite that confuses the working class with the poor helped cost Democrats in 2016. The book expands the Harvard Business Review article she wrote days after that election.

Core ideas
  • Questions elites ask: Chapters take on why the working class resents the poor, why they don't move for jobs or go to college, and whether they're simply racist or sexist.
  • Different values: Blue-collar life prizes self-discipline, stability and institutions like the military, religion and family, where elites prize self-development and novelty.
  • What Trump heard: In her account, he spoke to working-class values of straight talk, masculinity and economic independence that established politicians had overlooked.
Published2017
Pages180
ISBN9781633693784
ReadFeb 2021

Connected to 11 other books

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