Shocking: Working Class Actually Quite Fond Of Left-Wing Economic Policies
Who would have thought?
If there is one thing that Republicans and Democratic consultants can agree on, it is that the working class of America loves racism and sexism and hates socialism. Alas, not only does this ignore the rather glaring fact that people of color make up 45 percent of the working class (many of whom even live right here in the Midwest) and that women make up 47 percent, but it turns out that large swaths of this group are quite fond of the kind of left-wing economic policies we have long been told would “scare them off.”
In fact, a recent study from Center for Working‑Class Politics and Jacobin has found that they are even more fond of some of them than non-working class people who consider themselves to be “egalitarians.”
The study analyzed myriad polls from various sources in order to suss out a comprehensive understanding of where the working class is and has been on a wide swath of policy ideas.
Via Jacobin:
To answer these questions, we analyzed 128 public-opinion questions from three of the most trusted and comprehensive surveys in US political science: the American National Election Studies (ANES), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Cooperative Election Study (CES). Our data spans from 1960 to 2022, allowing us to track long-term shifts in working-class attitudes across six issue domains: immigration, civil rights, social norms, environmental policy, and two categories of economic policy — predistribution (like wages and job protections) and redistribution (like taxes and social programs).
The results found that there is majority support among the working class for import limits to protect jobs, new limits on imports, increasing the federal minimum wage, belief that the government should do more, labor unions, a jobs guarantee, lower drug prices, increasing state transportation spending, and workers on boards of directors.
As far as redistributive policies go, majorities support increasing spending on Social Security, the poor, health care, social services and public education, as well as expanding Medicare, higher taxes for the rich, a millionaire tax, and paid parental leave.
While it wasn’t a majority, significantly more working class voters (44 percent) said they support government-provided health insurance than the “non-working class egalitarians.” They also showed more support for regulation, using tax increases to finance jobs programs, and spending on roads and mass transit.
The three most popular policies in this study were lowering prescription drug prices (at 92 percent), increasing spending on the poor (82 percent), and increasing the federal minimum wage (75 percent).
The study found that 10 percent of Trump voters were economically progressive and socially moderate, suggesting that they may be quite winnable.
This is fabulous news for Democrats, who now will not have to pay what I have to imagine are some very expensive consultants to tell them that being a man (a macho, macho man), holding largely centrist economic and social policies, performatively rolling over on trans people in interviews with right-wing ideologues, finding a liberal Joe Rogan, and doing more swearing are the only available keys to the White House. Imagine the money they will save by, instead, just telling people what they would like to do to help them have generally pleasant and slightly less stressful lives!
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
"Who would have thought?"
Anyone who's actually worked for a living? If it weren't for Dems, we'd have no weekends, time off, insurance, safety regs, etc., etc. EVERY law in this country that *benefits* the working American has been passed by Democrats.
OT - We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast with some NICE TIMES HAPPY NEWS!!!
https://substack.com/profile/155650816-cakes-we-like/note/c-137788762?r=2ko4xs