Winning Back the Working Class

Lessons From My Recent Interview with Dr. Stephanie Ternullo

Hey all. I’m trying something a little different here. In order to keep a steady stream of content coming your way, I’m going to experiment with releasing an essay every week, a couple days after the interview podcast drops, discussing something we talked about on the show. My tentative plan, starting next week, is to release new interviews on Tuesdays, with the essay coming out Thursday or Friday.

Then, beginning on May 18, I will be hosting a live Sunday morning talk show featuring a panel of guests from around state. HoosLeft This Week will bring together a range of Hoosiers from the democratic socialist left to principled never-Trump conservatives. MAGA Republicans lie and argue in bad faith. My hope is, without that element around, the rest of us can discuss the full range of what is possible in our state once we overcome the current crisis. Thanks, y’all.

So, I recently spoke with Harvard professor and author of the book How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics, Dr. Stephanie Ternullo. If you missed that discussion, check it out here:

To fill you in a little bit if you haven’t listened yet, Stephanie spent months embedded in three different largely white towns across the post-industrial Midwest, speaking with local elected officials, civic leaders, and regular citizens, comparing how each of these locales have adjusted to the economic and cultural pressures of deindustrialization. Despite similar profiles, these small towns have responded differently, largely depending on the strength of various local organizations like labor unions or churches.

Something you hear repeatedly in the media and online discourse - and something Dr. Ternullo said really “puts a bee in [her] bonnet” - is the criticism that working-class whites who vote Republican are “voting against their own self-interest.” I’m guilty of having perpetuated this trope myself. I posted a clip of us discussing this very topic on social media and it has generated a good bit of discussion, mostly along the lines of, “BUT THEY DO!”

@hoosleftLiberals often accuse working class folks of voting against their own self interests. Economically, that may be true. But that's also true for wealthy folks who vote for higher taxes on the rich. It all depends on how you define self-interest.

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And look, I have a hard time wrapping my head around it too. Political sickos like those of us reading and writing columns like this know that it was Republicans who broke the backs of labor unions, facilitated corporate mergers, shipped jobs overseas, and shuttered small businesses. We know Democrats have delivered better economic results since the end of World War II. We know that running a country is nothing like running a business. We are the weird outliers, sadly. Most people don’t know all that.

Despite their less-than-stellar performance when given the chance to lead, the Republicans are still considered the better party on the economy. Bad at governing. Good at branding. It’s an easy sell - I mean, obviously the richest people know the most about the economy, right? Oh. Right? Oh. Right? Well, you get the picture.

Still, even if the GOP’s reputation on the economy wasn’t a complete hoax, one’s “self-interest” need not be purely economic. I mean, groups like Patriotic Millionaires go around advocating for higher taxes on themselves, placing their values over their net worth. Aren’t they voting against their economic self interest? I would venture to say each and every one of us would agree that some things are more important than money, whether or not we agree on what those things are.

Maybe for some folks it’s abortion. For others, guns. For others still, it’s immigration. And however much I disagree with the reasoning that gets them there, I am not in a position to dictate what anyone should value and what they consider important. But I do think a lot of us on the left completely give up on people if they hold views contradictory to ours on some of these deeply contentious subjects.

Some people are just fundamentalists about certain things. You’ll never reach them. But that’s not most people.

Most people just want to be heard, without judgment. And they want somebody to fight for them.

Liberals secured important gains for marginalized groups since the 1970’s (at least until the Trump-appointed Supreme Court) - for women, people of color, the disabled, the LGBTQ community. We fought goddamn hard - and rightfully so - for social justice.

But this must be of little comfort to folks across the country who’ve only seen their factories abandoned, their local businesses shuttered, and their towns slowly die. Democrats didn’t fight for them.

Over the last 40+ years, liberals embraced neoliberalism with nearly as much fervor as their opponents. After all, it was Carter who deregulated many key industries, Clinton who signed NAFTA into law, and Obama who voted to bail out Wall Street while doing little for Main Street. The “both parties are the same” trope didn’t come from nowhere - on the economy, it has largely been true.

Trump emerged from a crowded Republican primary field in 2016 because he broke from party orthodoxy with his anti-free trade stance. It seemed liked he was fighting for them. Again, we all know he’s a conman and a fraud and only cares about enriching himself, but the performance is the point. Remember, hardly anybody pays as close attention to politics as we do, a whole lot of people don’t pay any attention, and a bunch more only get half the story.

So how do we reach those people? Should we even try?

Well, the good news is that the economy is the number one priority in just about every election. And Trump is doing a fine job pissing away Republicans’ reputation on managing that issue. That means we have an opportunity to redefine ourselves - by rejecting neoliberal global capitalism and getting back to the kind of New Deal-style economic populism that defined Democrats for the better part of the 20th Century.

And we don’t need to quit fighting for marginalized people; we have to do both.

Yeah, maybe some folks out here in the Rust Belt haven’t grown in ways we would like. Maybe some people have had hateful ideas planted in their hearts by partisan media. Maybe some really are “deplorable.” Still, unfettered capitalism doesn’t discriminate - gutting communities Black, White, and in between - and we shouldn’t discriminate in where we challenge it.

Everyone deserves a fighter.