Bridging the diploma divide in American politics
What is the diploma divide?
Is there a single change that could simultaneously increase support for climate change initiatives, defuse assaults on democracy, and decrease inequality? Yes: bridging the diploma divide between college grads and noncollege grads.
The sharp increase in inequality in the U.S. has been accompanied by a shift towards the far right among non-college voters of every racial group—despite the fact that far-right policies exacerbate inequality. This “diploma divide” reflects far-right success in sculpting economic anxieties into culture wars that now include opposition to climate change initiatives and assaults on democracy itself. Bridging the Diploma Divide holds the key to redirecting economic anxieties back into demands for greater income and social equality.
Isn’t far-right support about about racism?
Yes. Three different measures of racism are highly predictive of Trump voting, but a 2023 study shows that’s not why he won. Trump won because he also attracted a much larger group of voters with moderate levels of racial resentment. A prior study confirmed this: 20% of Trump voters polled as racist “preservationists” but 19% were “anti-elites” with moderate views on race.
What’s needed is not to fix noncollege voters but to fix the broken relationship between college and noncollege voters. This begins with cultural competence: elites typically know less about nonelites than vice versa. The first step is to recognize that that our values reflect our lives, and our lives reflect our privilege – or lack of it. Nonelites’ cultural commitments reflect the material conditions of their lives, which are very different from the elite lives. The result is the class culture gap: class is expressed through cultural differences, so that people from different classes have different values, different traditions of talk, and different attitudes towards tradition itself.
To understand how the far right successfully weaponizes the class culture gap, keep reading. The roadmaps below take only about 6 minutes each to read. They offer simple dos and don’ts to bridge the diploma divide, decrease polarization and inequality, and defend democracy.
POLICYMAKERS: learn how to frame issues to decrease the far-right’s appeal.
REPORTERS: find experts and new story ideas
ANYONE: understand how class drives American politics—which doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t.
Building cross-class and red state support for climate initiatives
Climate change is a far more polarized issue in the US than abroad because it has become associated with identity-based culture wars. What follows is a recipe for countering that. The good news is that we can message climate change in ways that can broaden support; the bad news is that this will require considerable change in the ways that environmentalists currently talk about climate change.
How the far right weaponizes racism, with counterstrategies
Charlottesville, VA, August 12, 2017
The far right seeks to convince working-class whites that their fortunes have fallen due to discrimination against them because they’re white; in fact, their fortunes have fallen because they’re working class. Recognizing this requires a language of social class. Unions help, as do messages focused on shared class interests that discuss class and racism together. This “race-class narrative” builds working-class power while it decreases racism—and the power of the far right.
How culture wars sculpt class conflict into support for the far right
Washington D.C., June 24 & 27, 2022
Class is expressed through cultural differences. Culture wars over abortion, guns, LGBTQIA+ issues, immigration, and Mr. Potato Head weaponize class differences between cultural elites and noncollege grads into support for the far right. This strategy “foregrounds real class cultural inequalities in order to obscure real economic ones.”
Rudy Giuliani at Republican National Convention, July 18, 2016; quote from Giuliani Jan. 6, 2021
How masculine anxieties fuel support for the far right
So much ink has been spilled about whether economic populism is about race or class that the powerful gender dynamics are often ignored. They shouldn’t be. Endorsement of hegemonic masculinity (aka macho) predicts Trump voting in both men and women—and it predicts positive evaluations of Trump even more than racism. Trump embodies a truculent form of “protest” masculinity that’s deeply resonant in an era of widespread economic anxiety. Ceding that powerful rhetoric to the far right is unwise. The only effective antidote to claims of masculinity are competing claims of masculinity.
Building cross-class support for economic justice
Foreclosed house, 2019.
After Biden’s election, Democrats assumed that “going big” on new redistributive programs was the key to a new Democratic majority. Research shows why that didn’t work: there is more support for labor market reforms than for redistribution. The solution is economic justice initiatives that tap deeply held beliefs that the rich are paid too much, that everyone else is paid too little, and that anyone who works hard deserves a stable middle-class life and retirement.
Click image for more info
Talking across class lines
The far right benefits when politicians send unintended class messages by the way they talk. Understanding the different talk traditions in elite and non-elite circles would eliminate a lot of unforced errors, but it would also require elites to learn – and respect – the talk traditions of non-elites.
Economic populism is about economics
Coming soon!
Commentary
How the Left Can Embrace Nationalism While Maintaining Its Values
Justin Gest, The Washington Post
What if We're the Bad Guys Here?
David Brooks, The New York Times
The Democratic Party Needs New, Younger Leadership Before It’s Too Late
Cas Mudde features Matt Barreto and Christopher S. Parker, The Guardian
Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America
Christopher S. Parker and Matt Barreto, Princeton University Press
Economy, COVID Drove Latino Voters Toward Trump in 2020
David Lauter features Matt Barreto, Los Angeles Times
What the 'Majority Minority' Shift Really Means for America
Justin Gest, The New York Times
UW Professor: ‘Hard to Be an Optimist,’ but This Time Could Be Different
Ed Ronco and Christopher S. Parker, KNKX Public Radio
Donald Trump Is Not the Only Alleged Criminal Democrats Can’t Unseat
Hallie Golden features Christopher S. Parker, The Nation
The Problem With How the Census Classifies White People
Justin Gest, The Atlantic
Averting Climate Collapse Requires Confronting Racism in Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can
Ian Haney López, Simon & Schuster
Can Democracy Survive Racism as a Strategy?
Ian Haney López, Protect Democracy
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class
Ian Haney López, Oxford University Press
How Populists Like Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Racism
Ian Haney López, The Nation
Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America
Ian Haney López, The New Press
This Is How Trump Convinces His Supporters They're Not Racist
Ian Haney López, The Nation
Reece Peck on Fox New’s Blue-Collar Conservatism
Illiberalism and Reece Peck, Illiberalism Studies Program
Our Divided Times Are an Opportunity for Empathy. Really.
Jamil Zaki, Robb Willer, Jan Gerrit Voelkel, and Luiza Santos, The Washington Post
Democratic Elites Don’t Understand the Class Culture Gap
Joan C. Williams, The New Republic
Justin Gest, Politico
Don’t Lose the Democratizing Effect of Remote Work
Joan C. Williams, Rachel Korn, and Mikayla Boginsky, Harvard Business Review
Fetterman, Trump, and a New Model of Blue-Collar Masculinity
Joan C. Williams, Politico
How Returning to Office Work is Impoverishing the Middle Class
Joan C. Williams, Politico
How You Treat the ‘Non-Elite’ is Key to Beating Populism
Joan C. Williams, Financial Times
The Democrats’ White-People Problem
Joan C. Williams, The Atlantic
The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension
Joan C. Williams, The New York Times
The Elites Feed Anti-Immigrant Bias
Joan C. Williams, The Wall Street Journal
The Misguided Push for an Equal Rights Amendment
Joan C. Williams, The New York Times
Why Progressive Candidates Should Invoke Conservative Values
Robb Willer and Jan Gerrit Voelkel, The New York Times
It's Time for an Expansive New Labor Movement
Leslie McCall and Jennifer Sherman The Boston Globe
The One Vital Message Democrats Need to Win
Joan C. Williams, Politico
Can the Democratic Party Be White Working Class Too?
Justin Gest, The American Prospect
White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America
Joan C. Williams, Harvard Business Review Press
Joe Garofoli features Matt Barreto, San Francisco Chronicle
Can the Democratic Party Be White Working Class, Too?
Justin Gest, The American Prospect
Dispatch from Deep in the Heart of Trump Country
Justin Gest, Reuters
Donald Trump Takes White Working Class People Down With Him
Justin Gest, Reuters
How Democrats Can Win Noncollege Voters Without Giving in to Racism
Joan C. Williams, The Hill
Justin Gest, Politico
Labour Is Moving Close to Disaster. How Can It Reconnect With Its Roots?
Justin Gest, The Guardian
Strange Bedfellows: Donald Trump and the White Working Class
Justin Gest, Reuters
The GOP Base Is Shrinking Fast. So Why Does its Power Seem So Secure?
Justin Gest, CNN
The Real Reason the White Working Class Still Support Trump
Justin Gest, The Washington Post
Justin Gest, Politico
Why Trumpism Will Outlast Donald Trump
Justin Gest, Politico
John Fetterman Is Running a Test That Democrats Need to Watch
Lisa R. Pruitt, Politico
“Latino America’s” Matt Barreto: Politicos Are Missing The Boat
NBC news staff feature Matt Barreto, NBC News
Ethnic Cues: The Role of Shared Ethnicity in Latino Political Participation
Matt Barreto, University of Michigan Press
Matt Barreto and Gary M. Segura, Public Affairs
Is Democracy Declining in the American States?
Matt Grossman features Matt Barreto, Niskanen Center
Want to Win Latino voters? Drop the Assumptions and Organize
Michael Sean Winters features Matt Barreto
Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class
Reece Peck, Cambridge University Press
Is Fox News the Smartest Journalism Ever?
Reece Peck, LA Progressive
Are Moral Judgements Good or Bad Things?
Robb Willer and Brent Simpson, Scientific American
Declining Status Leads to Resentment of Political Correctness
Robb Willer, The New York Times
Is the Environment a Moral Cause?
Robb Willer, The New York Times
The Critical Difference Between Republicans and Democrats That Explains the Presidential Campaign
Robb Willer and Chadly Stern, The Washington Post
The Key to Political Persuasion
Robb Willer and Matthew Feinberg, The New York Times
Working Group
(still in formation)
● Rep. Ro Khanna, Honorary Chair
● Sociologists who have written ethnographic studies of blue-collar and rural Americans: Michèle Lamont of Harvard and Jennifer Sherman of Washington State.
● Scholars who have studied the relationship of elite Americans with less privileged Americans: Michael Sandel of Harvard, Daniel Markovits of Yale Law School, and Joan C. Williams of University of California Law San Francisco.
● Critical race scholars and others who study the interaction of class, race and gender privilege: Ian Haney López of Berkeley and Karyn Lacy of the University of Michigan, and Saida Grundy of Boston University.
● Scholars who study people of color in politics: Mara Ostfeld of Michigan, Matt Barreto of UCLA/BSP research, and Corey Fields of Georgetown.
● Social psychologists who study the psychological dimensions of interclass relationships: Susan Fiske of Princeton and Cecilia Ridgeway of Stanford.
● Political scientists who study polarization and populism: Katherine Cramer of University of Wisconsin, Justin Gest of George Mason, Peter A. Hall of Harvard.
● Scholars and activists who study the political dimensions of masculinity: Robb Willer of Stanford, Terri Vescio of Penn State and Jackson Katz.
● Scholars of social inequality: Leslie McCall of CUNY and Hazel Marcus of Stanford.
● Media scholars who study far-right media: Reece Peck of the CUNY Graduate Center and Anthony Nadler of Ursinus College.
● People focused on the urban/rural divide: Lisa Pruitt of Davis, Anthony Flaccavento of Rural Urban Bridge Initiative.
● Pollsters: Celinda Lake and Matt Baretto of UCLA/BSP Research.
● Advisor and playwright: Jean Parvin Bordewich
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Email
williams@uclawsf.edu