Liberal blind spots conceal truths about ‘Trump Country’

Is the white working class an angry, backward monolith? You might think so after two years of media fixation on this version of the aggrieved laborer: male, Caucasian, conservative, racist, sexist.

This account does white supremacy a great service in several ways: It ignores workers of color, along with humane, even progressive white workers. It allows college-educated white liberals to signal superior virtue while denying the sins of their own place and class. And it conceals formally educated white conservatives who voted for Donald Trump in legions.

The trouble begins with language: Elite pundits regularly misuse “working class” as shorthand for right-wing white guys wearing tool belts. My father, a white man and lifelong construction worker who labors alongside immigrants and people of color on job sites across the Midwest and South working for a Kansas-based general contractor owned by a woman, would never make such an error.

What my father seeks is not a return to times that were worse for women and people of color but progress toward a society in which everyone can get by. After being laid off during the recession in 2008, my dad had to cash in his retirement to make ends meet while looking for another job. He has labored nearly every day of his life and has no savings beyond Social Security.

Yes, my father is angry at someone. But it is not his co-worker Gem, a Filipino immigrant with whom he has split a room, or Francisco, a Hispanic crew member. His anger, rather, is directed at bosses who exploit labor and governments that punish the working poor.

“Corporations,” Dad said. “That’s it. That’s the point of the sword that’s killing us.”

Among white workers, this negative energy has been manipulated to great political effect by a conservative trifecta in media, private interest and celebrity that we might call Fox, Koch and Trump.

Still, millions of white working-class people have resisted the traps of racism, sexism, homophobia and nationalism and voted the other way – or not voted at all. I am far less interested in calls for empathy toward struggling white Americans who spout hatred than I am in tapping into the political power of those who don’t.

Much has been made of the white working class’s political shift to the right. But Trump won among white college graduates, too. According to those same exit polls trotted out to blame the “uneducated,” 49 percent of whites with degrees picked Trump, while 45 percent picked Hillary Clinton. Media coverage suggests that economically distressed whiteness elected Trump, when in fact it was just plain whiteness.

Among the 30 states tidily declared “red” after the 2016 election, in two-thirds of them Clinton received 35 to 48 percent of the vote. My white working-class family was part of that large minority, rendered invisible by the Electoral College.

In the meantime, critical stories here in “red states” go underdiscussed and underreported, including:

BARRIERS TO VOTING. Forces more influential than the political leanings of a white factory worker decide election outcomes: gerrymandering, super PACs, corrupt officials.

DIFFERENT INFORMATION SOURCES. Some of my political views shifted when my location, peer group and news sources changed during my college years. Many Americans today have a glut of information but poor media literacy – hard to rectify if you work on your feet all day, don’t own a computer and didn’t get a chance to learn the vocabulary of national discourse.

POPULISM ON THE LEFT. Today, “populism” is often used interchangeably with “far right.” But the American left is experiencing a populist boom. According to its national director, Democratic Socialists of America nearly quadrupled in size from 2016 to 2017. Progressive congressional candidates with working-class backgrounds have major support heading into the midterms here in Kansas.

The greatest con of 2016 was not persuading a white laborer to vote for a nasty billionaire with soft hands. Rather, it was persuading a watchdog press to cast every working-class American in the same mold. The resulting national conversation, which seeks to rename my home “Trump Country,” elevates a white supremacist agenda by undermining resistance and solidarity where it is most urgent and brave.