a better life.” She describes the euphoria when a new business comes to town. “Pollution
is the sacrifice we make for capitalism,”^282 mused one of her Tea Party friends.
As progressives’ attention shifted to issues of peace and then equal rights and
environmentalism, blue-collar workers felt abandoned. Sometimes they were: the Uber
story provides an example. After taxi drivers paid $250,000 for taxi medallions (licenses
that allow the holder to drive a cab), progressive San Francisco allowed Uber and other
rideshare companies to break the laws taxis had to abide by, causing the value of
medallions to plummet. Then the city issued even more medallions, further eroding their
market value. Progressives in San Francisco had little interest in blue-collar cab drivers
(many of them immigrant men of color); their solicitude was for “disruptive” companies
run by the PME.^283
Not only are blue-collar whites no longer the center of the progressive coalition, in some
circles, they are no longer seen as part of it. In 2016 the Clinton campaign acted on the
accepted wisdom that working-class whites were no longer even a part of the coalition.
Bill Clinton warned repeatedly that Hillary’s campaign needed to address working-class
issues. But these warnings “fell on deaf ears” as he waged “a lonely, one-man war... to
appeal to working-class and white rural voters.” His advice was “often dismissed with a
hand wave by senior members of the team as a personal vendetta to win back the voters
who elected him, from a talented but aging politician who simply refused to accept the
new Democratic map,” noted Politico.^284
Why can’t Democrats just ignore this group and count on their coalition of professional-
class whites and minorities to deliver elections? That didn’t work in 2016 and here’s why:
the Electoral College gives the white working class out-sized political power. The
Electoral College was designed to overweight the rural vote—today, that means working-
class whites. We’ve all seen the electoral maps that show that vast interior of rural red
rimmed by the thin blue lines of the East and West coasts. Unless hipsters move to Iowa,
an infuriated rural electorate will continue to hold disproportionate power. For the 112
years of American history prior to the 2000 election, the candidate who won the popular
vote also won the Electoral College vote.^285 In the five elections since, two Democratic
candidates who won the popular vote have lost the Electoral College. The system is
flawed, but it’s the one we have.
The white working class is important not only for strategic but also for ethical reasons.
Ideally, no politician should ignore whole swaths of the country. And the left professes to
care about diversity and level playing fields. But they can barely look class issues in the
- Why Are Democrats Worse at Connecting with the White Working Class Than Republicans?