Civil liberties. These can be framed to appeal to the high value that working-class whites
place on privacy (“not spilling your guts”) and their distrust of big government. Having a
registry of Muslims is a classic example of government waste: 99.99% of Muslims aren’t
terrorists. What a waste of money to keep track of the God-fearing, law-abiding 99%—
money better spent on tracking down the tiny fraction of people who are terrorists,
Muslims or not.
Climate change. This is a hard one, but one thing is clear. Insisting that resistance comes
from plebeians too ignorant to credit science frames this issue precisely in the way most
likely to enlist working-class opposition to climate change initiatives. When I hear some
environmentalists talk, I feel like I’m listening to my German Jewish grandmother calling
Russian Jews peasants.
Climate change is too important to be sacrificed to snobbery. Rather than turning the
climate change debate into a fight over the authority of science, why not enlist the
support of farmers who see the changes on the ground as desertification sets in? “Who
cares why it’s happening?” one class-migrant climate activist advised. “Let’s meet them
on the ground. That’s what they know, and they can see what’s happening.”
Policing and race. Perhaps no issue has proven more divisive in recent years than
controversies over police shootings of African-Americans. This is an emotional and
thorny topic. Here is my attempt to navigate it.
Black Lives Matter is an important movement because of the historic and continuing
segregation and racism black people face in this country. Black men have been targeted
by the police since policing was invented. It’s disturbing that it took the cell phone to
draw national attention to the issue of police violence against African-Americans. Many
of us know young black men who have been pulled over time and again. The implicit
association test documents the association of black people with violence, a stereotype
that can escalate police encounters at warp speed.^267 “We laugh about how white
perpetrators of mass murders manage to be captured alive time and time again,” wrote a
friend describing her reading group of 12 black women, while African-Americans meet
death at the hands of the police for selling cigarettes. In Oakland, California, near my
hometown, some police sent racist texts while others were involved in a sexual
misconduct scandal involving an underage girl.^268 Baltimore police routinely violate
constitutional rights, discriminate against African-Americans, and use excessive force,
the Justice Department concluded in 2017.^269 Toxic organizational cultures exist. They
need to change.
- Can Liberals Embrace the White Working Class without Abandoning Important Values and Allies?
