Outclassed How the Left lost the working class and how to win them back
Book - 2025
"An eye-opening, urgent call to mend the broken relationship between college and non-college grads of all races that is driving politics to the far right in the US. Is there a single change that could simultaneously protect democracy, spur progress on climate change, enact sane gun policies, and improve our response to the next pandemic? Yes: changing the class dynamics driving American politics. The far right manipulates class anger to undercut progressive goals and liberals often inadvertently play into their hands. In Outclassed, Joan C. Williams explains how to reverse that process by bridging the "diploma divide", while maintaining core progressive values. She offers college-educated Americans insights into how their val...ues reflect their lives and their lives reflect their privilege. With illuminating stories -from the Portuguese admiral who led that country's COVID response to the lawyer who led the ACLU's gay marriage response (and more)- Williams demonstrates how working-class values reflect working-class lives. Then she explains how the far right connects culturally with the working-class, deftly manipulating racism and masculine anxieties to deflect attention from the ways far-right policies produce the economic conditions disadvantaging the working-class. Whether you are a concerned citizen committed to saving democracy or a politician or social justice warrior in need of messaging advice, Outclassed offers concrete guidance on how liberals can forge a multi-racial cross-class coalition capable of delivering on progressive goals"--
| Location | Call Number | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd Floor New Shelf | 305.562/Williams | (NEW SHELF) | Due Sep 30, 2025 |
- Subjects
- Published
-
New York :
St. Martin's Press
2025.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition
- Physical Description
- viii, 356 pages ; 25 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN
- 9781250368966
- Introduction
- Part I. Aren't You Sick of Losing Elections or Just Scraping By?
- 1. Is There Really a Diploma Divide?
- 2. Isn't It Just the White Working Class?
- 3. Isn't It Bizarre When the Left Denies the Impact of Inequality on Politics?
- 4. Why Are Rural and Rust Belts Red?
- 5. Is the Solution to Move to the Center?
- Part II. What's the Matter with Kansas?
- 6. Why Does the Culture Wars Formula Work So Well?
- 7. Isn't It Ironic That Red "Family Values" States Have Weaker Families than Blue States?
- 8. Can't People See Through Trump's Truculent Retro Masculinity?
- 9. Doesn't the Diploma Divide Just Reflect "Grievance Politics
- 10. How Can I Respect People Who Deny Facts and Science?
- Part III. What's the Matter with Cambridge?
- 11. Smart People Get Ahead; Isn't That Just the Reality?
- 12. It's a Battle Between Sophisticated Global Citizens and Parochial Ethno-Nationalists, Right?
- 13. Aren't the College-Educated Just More Enlightened?
- 14. Aren't Elites Just Less Racist?
- Part IV. The Path Past Far-Right Populism
- 15. Of Covid and Playground Design: How Class Blindness Distorts Public Policy
- 16. Nothing Is as Dangerous as a Man Without a Future (Even If You Offer Universal Basic Income)
- 17. Understand Why Demography Wasn't Destiny
- 18. Understand the Flaws in the Conventional Wisdom that MAGA Is About Racism and Status Anxiety, Not Economics
- 19. Talking Across Class Lines
- 20. Redirect Anti-Elitist Anger
- 21. Therapy's Expensive, but Praying Is Free
- 22. Understand How We Won the Gay Marriage Battle: Rinse and Repeat
- 23. Deploy Alternative Masculinities to Build Support for Vaccinations, Sane Gun Policies, and More
- 24. Talk About Solutions-Not the Causes-of "Extreme Weather"
- 25. Reframe the Immigration Debate to Tap Working-Class Values
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index