ISBN : 9780190861414
Who are white working class people? What do they believe? What has driven them to break so sharply with the world's trajectory toward a more borderless, interconnected meritocracy? The White Working Class: What Everyone Needs to KnowRG presents the context for understanding the political ideologies, actions, and behavior of this complicated constituency. Providing an accessible introduction to the white working class, this book argues that they must be understood if the world is to address and respond to the social and political phenomena they are driving.
1) Introduction and definitions
a) What does it mean to be white?
b) What does it mean to be working class?
c) How do these understandings change across Western countries?
d) What are the narratives of the white working class across time?
e) What are the demographics of white working class people?
f) Where are white working class people the most politicized?
2) White working class people and identity
a) Is white identity on the rise?
b) Why has whiteness grown in salience rather than working class social status?
c) Why do white working class people feel marginalized?
d) Can we think of white working class people as a minority?
e) Is white working class angst merely racism?
f) Why is immigration so pivotal to white working class politics?
3) White working class policy attitudes and beliefs
a) Are white working class interests distinct?
b) What are white working class policy attitudes?
c) Do white working class people vote against their own interests?
d) Do white working class people consume fewer government resources than others?
e) Are white working class people really losing jobs to immigrants and minority groups?
f) What drives tolerance and intolerance of minority groups?
4) White working class people and voting
a) What are white working class partisanship trends over time?
b) What are white working class ideological trends over time?
c) To what extent do white working class people support the Radical Right?
d) Why do white working class people support Radical Right candidates and parties?
e) Why do white working class people support Donald Trump?
f) How has the election of Donald Trump affected white working class views?
5) The future of white working class people
a) Was the white working class ever on top?
b) Are white working class people trapped in poverty?
c) Do they have more in common with other working class people than with whites?
d) How has the decline in unions affected white working class politics?
e) Can we speak of a white working class voting bloc? (Silos, Sorting, Group Conscious)
f) Can Donald Trump or anyone else save the white working class?
