RHH Elections has something on ‘class’ and Republicans….
The Blog seems to say that Republicans should stop trying look down on minorities and appeal to them economically…
THAT would be a heavy lift for most on the Right….
Big Picture
Class: The author of this essay argues that the GOP is hitting on something important, but is unfocused, and could fix that by using the word ‘class’ in its messaging. They make the point that class isn’t just economic, and that’s true enough. What they miss is that while there are definitely many factors, economics is an important part of the picture. It’s a well-known fact that the most left-wing people in the U.S. are often at the nexus of being both well-educated AND low-income. Similarly, the most unswervingly conservative elements in America are often those who are both low-education and financially successful. There are geographic factors, too. There are liberal stockbrokers with a high school education who came from poor families in New York and there are conservative teachers from locally prominent families in Grand Junction. They make mention of how the emphasis might be better put on the ‘working class’ part of ‘white working class’ than the other way around. This is also true enough, but it ignores that the biggest weapon that Republicans have in their arsenal long-term for getting minority votes is assimilation and the economic advancement that goes hand-in-hand with it. Economics may often take a back seat to cultural issues, but they’re still important to the electoral success of both parties. Furthermore, Americans have a much more economics-based conception what of class is than do both the author and most other cultures. Maybe there should be a term to use that summarizes resistance to the left’s cultural hegemony, but ‘class’ isn’t it.