{"id":417654,"date":"2022-03-17T18:58:20","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T15:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-the-working-class-embraced-right-wing-populism\/"},"modified":"2022-03-17T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T15:58:20","slug":"why-the-working-class-embraced-right-wing-populism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-the-working-class-embraced-right-wing-populism\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why the working class embraced right-wing populism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a257059bda3f\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a257059bda3f\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-the-working-class-embraced-right-wing-populism\/#%E2%80%9CWhy_the_working_class_embraced_right-wing_populism%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Why the working class embraced right-wing populism&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CWhy_the_working_class_embraced_right-wing_populism%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Why the working class embraced right-wing populism&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n                            Can the left win them back?\n                        <\/div>\n<div>\n                                                                        What is wrong with the working class? That question has been furiously debated among left-leaning intellectuals since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Many of them think workers have consistently voted against their own material interests and even\u2014as in the case of anti-mask and anti-vax protests\u2014their own safety. The question has been asked with increasing urgency in the 21st century as the migration of anti-elite populism from its original home on the left side of the political spectrum to the right has accelerated, hitting a crescendo in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and the triumph of Brexit in the U.K. The short answer usually on offer is: culture.<\/p>\n<p>Whether defined broadly as the entirety of a way of life (the sum of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> interactions that distinguish one region or era from another) or more narrowly as something akin to an ideology, culture is widely thought to trump material interest. This is a decades-old concept among academics, and often referred to as \u201cthe cultural turn.\u201d The idea was to shift the emphasis in socioeconomic debates from objective reality (however defined and disputed) to the meaning humans derive from that reality, the way they make sense of their world and assume their identities. Much of the scholarship has been dispassionate, but many of the most prominent voices have not.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0What does it mean to be working class in Canada?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As early as 2004, historian Thomas Frank\u2019s seminal <em>What\u2019s the Matter With Kansas<\/em> answered the titular question in a dismissive, often angry, tone. Misled by a right-wing media ecosystem that stokes racial resentment and xenophobia, and pushes other hot-button issues such as reproductive and transgender rights, the American working class focuses its populist anger on cultural and not economic elites, according to Frank: \u201cS<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a> today\u2019s Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPush them off their land, and next thing you know they\u2019re protesting in front of abortion clinics.\u201d Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton also, to their political regret, chimed in, the former with his 2008 comments on how \u201cbitter\u201d displaced workers were inclined to \u201ccling to guns or religion,\u201d the latter with her \u201cbasket of deplorables\u201d remark eight years later.<\/p>\n<p>There is truth in all those comments, says sociologist Vivek Chibber, but they still miss the point. The core argument in his new book,<em> The Class Matrix<\/em>, is that workers haven\u2019t so much consented to a resurgent market economy, with its concomitant shrinking of the welfare state, as they have become resigned to it. \u201cThat\u2019s the society we live in,\u201d Chibber says by phone from New York. \u201cWhen we on the left ask that what\u2019s-the-matter-with-Kansas question, we\u2019re not considering the choice set that faces workers, the bread-and-butter decisions they make every day\u2014how do I find a job, how do I keep it\u2014and [the fact that] they make those quite rationally, on an individual basis.\u201d There is not much reason to think collectively, and even fewer pathways to collective action. \u201cThe vaccines are a good example,\u201d Chibber continues. \u201cYou\u2019re told to take them by people you have good reason to think despise you for your way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The left-wing intelligentsia, centred in universities, tends to focus on its own issues, says Chibber, from \u201cgender fluidity to white privilege.\u201d In the same fashion, the university-educated members of middle-class unions\u2014workers who essentially share the worldview of their managers\u2014focus on theirs. And, as anyone who has been involved in a middle-class union\u2014as I have, in a journalists\u2019 guild\u2014can attest, those issues are far more about improving severance packages than fundamentally altering the relationship between workers and bosses.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>RELATED:\u00a0The working class has had enough<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That is a sea change from the relatively recent past, Chibber contends. \u201cFrom the early 1900s into the 1970s, labour parties had two things in common,\u201d he says. \u201cOne was they were all based physically inside working-class neighbourhoods. Social, working, private, political life [was] wr<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ed together. If union or party people told you the vaccines were good for you, you\u2019d probably believe [them, because they are] the people who fought for your jobs, housing and medical care. The second thing was that the party candidates elected to office were themselves working class.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, the largest company workforces are geographically dispersed, and legislatures, as Michael Sandel notes in his 2020 book <em>The Tyranny of Merit<\/em>, resemble their 19th-century forebears\u2014more diverse in race and gender, but just as stratified in socioeconomic status. In terms of being dominated by well-off professionals, Chibber says, \u201cI think the NDP is going the same way in Canada, though it\u2019s not as far along as the Democrats, who are basically a party of millionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s only rational, says Chibber, that \u201cworking-class confidence in any basic institution is close to zero.\u201d For him, the first step toward writing \u201ca new script\u201d for the revival of labour politics is realizing that the problem is the economy, stupid, and not the workers.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>This article appears in print in the April 2022 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s <em>magazine with the headline, \u201cThe cultural spurn.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/secure.macleans.ca\/loc\/MME\/head_subscribe\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"under-article-widget-nl\">\n<p class=\"under-article-widget-title\">Looking for more?<\/p>\n<p class=\"under-article-widget-description\">Get the best of <em>Maclean&#8217;s<\/em> sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for daily stories and analysis.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/why-the-working-class-embraced-right-wing-populism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Why the working class embraced right-wing populism&#8221; Can the left win them back? What is wrong with the working class? That question has been furiously debated among left-leaning intellectuals since the days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Many of them think workers have consistently voted against their own material interests and even\u2014as in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":417655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/POPULISM-BOOK-BETHUNE-MAR7-01-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67806,126930,67879,53479,83004],"class_list":["post-417654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-editors-picks","tag-labour","tag-society","tag-work","tag-working-class"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}