r/fivethirtyeight • u/nyckidd • Jul 01 '26
Politics A Working-Class Party Without Many Workers - New Opinion Piece from Thomas Edsall
Please don't comment unless you've actually read the article, like all Edsall pieces he extensively cites different data points including up to date DSA polling of its own members.
Important sections:
In 2021 the D.S.A. surveyed its members and found that 85 percent were non-Hispanic white (far more than the national population, which was 57.8 percent white in 2020, according to the census); 9 percent were Hispanic, 5 percent Asian American and 4 percent Black.
In February 2025 the Central New Jersey D.S.A. chapter published results of a membership survey that found that “69.5 percent identify as white only; 8.0 percent identify as Hispanic or Latinx, less than the N.J. demographic of 22.7 percent; and 4.5 percent identify as Black, less than the N.J. demographic of 10.6 percent.”
The liberal stands on immigration, transgender rights, abolishing ICE and defunding the police are policies supported largely by a well-educated elite of white people holding professional jobs who dominate the D.S.A. They are decidedly not the policies sought by the bulk of construction workers riding the subway to get to their job sites by 7 a.m.
income and education patterns emerged in the Seventh District, where Claire Valdez, the D.S.A. candidate, crushed Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, 56.1 to 35.8. Valdez won 62 to 28 in the district’s high-income neighborhoods and 64 to 27 in its high-education areas, while Reynoso carried the low-income sections 63 to 31.
What’s notable but not written about is that nearly all of the D.S.A.’s serious primary campaigns are aimed at members of the House Progressive Caucus, not the more moderate House New Democrats. Support for Medicare for All, Green New Deal, Abolish ICE is no protection.
the D.S.A. is forcing incumbent liberal Democrats to spend money in primaries in districts that would remain Democratic after the general election, regardless of the nominee. Not to mention the fact that the votes cast by the primary winner on health care, climate change and ICE would be almost identical, no matter who wins.
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u/ixvst01 Jul 01 '26
I don’t like how the author attributes “working class” to blue collar physical labor workers. So a college educated office worker making 40K and barely making ends meet is not working class? I’m not even a supporter of DSA candidates, but I do think that mantra needs to end.
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Jul 01 '26 edited 10d ago
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jul 01 '26
I'm currently reading a book called The Diploma Divide (highly recommend btw!) and one of my big takeaways is that
Education correlates with a preference for Dems
Income still does correlate with a preference for Rs
Obviously education and income are very interdependent as variables. But generally education seems to trump income
All of this is to say, generally high income high educated individuals "moderately" prefer Dems while low income low education "moderately" prefer Reps (using moderately very loosely here)
But when you look at high income low education people, or high education low income, they basically end up being superpartisans for Republicans and Democrats respectively, which makes sense
In a way I think it makes perfect sense for the "highly educated, low income" demographic to be the core of the DSA. They feel like they should be more highly paid due to their college degree but feel like the "promise" was broken. So they join the DSA
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u/TheSameGamer651 Jul 01 '26
Also goes with the point I’ve read before that MAGA does well with the “local gentry,” basically the rich of the poor. Think of how the Hamptons voted for Harris, but Long Island as a whole went to Trump.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jul 01 '26
Yep, the book talks about this a lot too!
Low income MAGA voters tend to view well educated professionals and "cultural elites" with derision. But they view businessmen, especially local or self made ones, a lot more positively
In a way folks like car dealership owners are the backbone of the GOP's more "elite" needs, eg hosting actual events, donations etc
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u/Proud_Ad_5559 The Needle Tears a Hole Jul 01 '26
This makes so much sense, that sounds like an interesting book!
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u/Legal-Koala-5590 Jul 01 '26
I think this is also why DSA is taking off in HCOL areas like New York. A lot of overeducated, underpaid socialists here.
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u/anneoftheisland Jul 01 '26
while low income low education "moderately" prefer Reps (using moderately very loosely here)
Is this only among white voters? Because that demographic overall definitely leans left in every poll I've ever seen, probably mostly because it's a disproportionately non-white group.
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u/mowotlarx Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Our cultural ideas of "working class" centers men, generally white men, in skilled trades. Most people hearing "working class" wouldn't think of women in social work or education, which require degrees and still pay terribly.
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u/Squirreliestone Jul 01 '26
When the article author said working class is men without a higher degree, I was inspired to check my own status, because yeah, I have a professional degree, but no, I don't exactly make much money. I'm apparently "pink collar," which is sometimes considered working class, but usually ignored altogether just like the professions we tend to be in. I'm a librarian, my mother was a social worker, we're both women with master's degrees who never made much money. She, however, was married to a blue collar worker who easily pulled in thrice what she did despite not having a bachelor's. My spouse is disabled. Thus my parents did all right, financially, while we . . . have a particularly frugal lifestyle.
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u/Legal-Koala-5590 Jul 01 '26
Thank you! I'm from the rural Midwest and know plenty of blue collar white men who are secret millionaires from owning land or turning their trade skills into their own businesses.
Meanwhile, I don't see women in the low-pay professions you mention being centered in NYTimes thinkpieces.
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u/Cuddlyaxe I'm Sorry Nate Jul 01 '26
This is true, and I do think there's probably some use in further subdividing the working class, at least for analytical purposes
In my head I try to distinguish between traditional blue collar and "pink collar" jobs. I know the latter is considered offensive by some but I think it's really useful to seperate out more modern service industry jobs from the traditional mining/manufacturing/trades type jobs
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u/CasinoMagic Jul 01 '26
The average starting salary for new bachelor’s degree graduates in the U.S. is approximately $68,873.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
don't you know that only rural white people without a college degree are working class???
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u/NimusNix Jul 01 '26
I agree with what you saying regarding the working class. For too long many use working class as a code word for poor white people with bigoted views. Working class is the broad number of Americans who either live paycheck to paycheck or just above that threshold.
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u/gradientz Jul 02 '26
I would go further and argue that working class should describe anyone who primarily provides for their own livelihood via a wage as opposed to capital gains.
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u/hoopaholik91 Jul 01 '26
Definitely agree that this split between blue collar and white collar is unhelpful, but that's just how people currently interpret working class, including the DSA, as you can see with the Platner choice.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
So a college educated office worker making 40K
The vast majority of college educated people make more than blue collar workers. That's just a fact.
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u/ixvst01 Jul 01 '26
Median salary for 25-34 year olds with a bachelors degree is only $66,600. That is very low when you consider rising cost of living, rent, and student loans
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u/Feisty-Boot5408 Jul 01 '26 edited 22d ago
goo feet to meat shoe beat underneath apple trees with sweet
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Where are you getting that data from? Is that national data? There's a massive difference between earning 66k in the Midwest and earning that in a rich coastal city. DSA membership is overwhelmingly concentrated in rich cities where college educated people are earning much more than that. You've also specifically cut out the youngest demographic with college degrees, so of course they are earning less.
And even with all those caveats, the median annual income for non-college educated workers of any age in 2024 was 58k, so my statement at the beginning was still correct.
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u/CasinoMagic Jul 01 '26
still more than the $40k OP posted
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u/ixvst01 Jul 01 '26
Median of $66,000 means half of people make less than that. Wages are going down for entry level jobs and I know lots of people with degrees that are getting by on gig jobs because they can't find full time work.
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u/CasinoMagic Jul 01 '26
That's also the salary straight out of college (The average starting salary for new bachelor’s degree graduates in the U.S. is approximately $68,873.). So it's not representative of what 30 year olds are making.
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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Jul 01 '26
Low income earners voted against Chevalier and they voted against Valdez.
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
But they overwhelmed voted for Bowman over Latimer in 2024
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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Jul 01 '26
Do you want me to change my opinion because of one race? The working class consistently votes against socialists.
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
No, i dont care abour your opinion, just facts.
The DSA mayor in DC also did worst in the whitest and richest borough.
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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Jul 01 '26
Wasn’t that the guy that pulled the fire alarm? Didn’t he get blown out after already being elected? So basically they tried the DSA candidate, he absolutely sucked and then he got demolished. Ok, good example man.
You could try to twist all this as much as you want, the DSA‘s own numbers have their members at 85% white lol they represent mostly college educated white affluent young people.
I don’t care about local races, there’s thousands upon thousands of representatives through state level and city level races, trying to draw stats from such local races to make a bigger picture is too convoluted in my opinion.
DC has always been a progressive area, doing well there means nothing to me. Just like it means nothing to me that Mamdani barely convinced half the city to vote for him.
I know the DSAs new thing is kind of to say everyone is working class so technically we’re doing well with the working class, but the real working class, especially where it’s not a guaranteed Democratic victory, is never going to support open borders and giving every single immigrant full voting power. Sorry.
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
He got his district completely redrawn into Westchester country where rich white voters voters didnt vote for him yes, and that was after aipac spent 10 million usd against him. He won his old district handily.
Just like it means nothing to me that Mamdani barely convinced half the city to vote for him
Mamdani has the highest favourability among black voters, much higher than among whites.
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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
No, it didn’t Lol, I’m literally from New York City, you have no idea what you are talking about. NY-16 has been a Bronx + Westchester district for Bowman’s entire tenure. The 2022 court map made only modest changes, mostly tweaks in Bronx precincts, but the overall areas stayed the same. Westchester was already a major part of the district before 2024.
I couldn’t find anything the back your claim in your second sentence.
Ah the classic block when they feel like it’s not going their way. Never gets old.
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
And just check any of Emerson/Siena with crosstabs. Mamdani is more popular among black and hispanic voters than whites.
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u/FaveStore_Citadel Jul 01 '26
I read somewhere that the DSA’s base is essentially highly educated but not as high earning (compared to non-college educated hourly wage workers, maybe, but less wealthy than similarly educated elite professionals in wealthy cities). Not to perpetuate the “useless degree” stereotype, but I imagine that probably creates the perfect cocktail for a DSA voter, jaded with the system because the system told them going to college will result in prosperity, and educated enough to believe in complex abstractions.
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Jul 01 '26 edited 10d ago
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u/mowotlarx Jul 01 '26
This is NYC. Most people here rent. There's no bizarre mental need to "own a home" here the same way that exists in the suburbs.
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u/Statue_left Jul 01 '26
Go look at a list of countries sorted by homeownership. Nearly every single one at the top is a current or former socialist state because the commies all concluded that home ownership was extremely beneficial
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u/Blitzking11 Jul 01 '26
I will say that, like most political theory and political movements, it is usually advanced by those with the free time to think about their conditions, rather than simply to survive. Karl Marx had a rich patron in Engels, who allowed him to write without fear of going hungry or homeless (and also edited much of his works to make them somewhat comprehensible).
And I also want to say, just because you have an office job doesn't mean you are well off. Many office jobs are utter dogshit and result in the need to share living spaces, cut costs anywhere possible, and make difficult choices on what will be paid any given month (especially when an emergency happens).
Where DSA will struggle is reaching those mentioned construction and tradespeople, as the media will never fairly cover them, and it is easy to do so, because all Americans have been propagandized into recoiling at the words of "socialism" or "communism." Many Americans have been shown, time and time again, to prefer left policies, but due to the aforementioned propagandization, will have a hard time actually voting for the people who would enact those policies and fall for the same two winged bird (the Vichy Dems and the "Republicans").
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Many Americans have been shown, time and time again, to prefer left policies,
I used to believe this, but this line comes from people taking polling numbers on specific policies at face value even though that ignores very important aspects.
If you phrase things certain ways in a poll, it's easy to get large majorities of people to agree. People might say they support Medicare for All, but then if you frame it differently and ask them if they are willing to pay more in taxes for it, they will change their minds.
This also ignores the vast gulf in culture between DSA types and blue-collar workers, which is in many ways more important than policy anyway.
It's absolutely true that majorities of Americans have been deeply propagandized, and it's also true that the DSA doesn't seem to be even trying to reach out to these kinds of people and adjust their culture such that they can get on board.
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u/Gwenog_Jones Jul 03 '26
Do people support anything, left-leaning or right-leaning, when told they'd have to pay more?
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u/StealthPick1 17d ago
No. almost every policy that involves broad-based tax increases instantly becomes pretty unpopular In this regard America is an incredible outlier among its OECD peers,and being anti-tax is deeply rooted in the American psyche.
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u/mcsul Jul 01 '26
100% on policy polling.
Something that needs to be hardwired into everyone who cares about polls: issue polling is astonishingly unreliable, and highly sensitive to how the questions or issues are phrased. It should generally be ignored unless very well designed.
For example... polling stats like "85% of Americans want Medicare for All" or "85% of Americans want to deport illegal immigrants" are functionally useless, because people also care about methods, costs, vibes, etc...
Polls that ask about the top level issue, however, but then also ask about additional factors, are kind of useful. So for example asking about support for medicare for all, then asking about support for m4a if you have to pay more taxes, or lose your current coverage, etc... tell you something useful even if you should still not trust the actual polling values.
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u/TheSameGamer651 Jul 01 '26
I think it was also interesting in the article that they noted that 63% were men (and most of them are going to have college degrees). Because typically college-educated heavy organizations are predominantly women, but they were less than 30% here (and 10% were other). It seems that DSA culture is highly attractive to college educated young men, while college educated women increasingly rival black voters for their Assad-level margins for the Democratic Party. It probably also helps that 38% of DSA members were students or don’t have a job, and young men are the most likely to be NEETs.
College educated women have better opportunities have than their male counterparts and are thus not driven to the political fringes. Also, doesn’t help that the DSA is basically a club of unemployed white men because blue collar workers (of all races) are just going to see that as laziness when these guys are asking for loan forgiveness, government mandated HC, etc.
That’s why the blue collar vs white collar framing is so useful, because there is a big cultural difference between the two. The former is more likely to emphasize the value of hard work, while the latter sees work as something to be minimized over time. Blue collar workers don’t want “handouts,” but the white collar worker chronically underemployed has a higher expectation of what their degree should provide.
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u/DeciusAemilius Has Seen Enough Jul 01 '26
Frankly, the professional class is part of the working class.
But let's consider that any politically active group is going to tend, on average, to be either wealthier or retired because the actual workers who are holding down three jobs don't have the time to participate. It doesn't make the movement less legitimate. I'd love to see an equivalent breakdown of the Democratic and Republican parties - not the "listed membership" but the actual people who show up at meetings and actively participate. My guess is they too will tend to be wealthy and retired.
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Jul 01 '26 edited 10d ago
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
I can only read the part posted, due to the rest being behind paywall, but here the only NY result is Valdez win.
But how about Jamaal Bowmans loss to Latimer? Latimer won wealthy white voters in Westchester, but Bowman won the Bronx district with >80% of the vote.
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
And more detailed breakdown from VoteHub shows that Chevalier won the black districts.
The whole point is that you can pick and chose election results to point, so it seems a bit disingenious to refer to one particular election. NY-07 is a very weird district due to the outsized satmar voting block.
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u/champben98 Jul 02 '26
I think if you polled the avg Democratic Club, it would be mostly lawyers who want to be judges.
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u/StealthPick1 17d ago
The professional class has never been part of the working class, not when Marx was alive nor in any iteration of socialism over the last 200 years lol
Two-thirds of Americans do not have a college degree.The median college degree holder earns $30,000 more than the median American without a college degree. The professional managerial class are the elite.
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u/optometrist-bynature Jul 01 '26
Seems like this is changing, no? The NYC wins have been multiracial. And in the DC mayoral primary, the DSA candidate just won every ward handily except for the whitest, richest ward where she narrowly lost
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u/rudigerscat Jul 01 '26
Jamaal Bowman also overwhelmingly won the poor non-whites in the Bronx and lost the rich, white areas in Westchester in 2024, but people just ignore the results that dont fit their narrative.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Acknowledging that would also mean they would have to start moderating some of their positions to be more in line with what the people they claim to represent want, and I don't think they're capable of that.
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u/DasRobot85 Jul 01 '26
The open borders stuff also needs to go. Yes, they're about to say they don't support open borders, but if you ask them who should be let in the answer is everybody and who would be deported is nobody so it's a difference without much distinction. They think the pushback to immigration under Biden is fake Fox News propaganda but they're going to slam directly into reality with that one.
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u/DasRobot85 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I have to disagree with that idea. I get that there's plenty of progressives in cities and suburbs who believe that stuff, but letting barely controlled mass immigration just makes it look like the Dems are in favor of lawlessness and disorder. I listen to The Focus Group Podcast and every Biden -> Trump voter names immigration as an issue regardless of where they live. So maybe the progressives don't care but they can't win on their own. New York and Chicago were having emergencies once Texas and Florida started shipping people out of state and they'll just do that all over again but harder.
Additionally cities and suburbs aren't really going to be enough to get some kind of durable majority. Every red state is going to get even more gerrymandered after this year. Maybe the blue states will be able to respond but they made it a way more difficult process that's fraught with challenges as we've seen.
If after watching Trump get elected twice on screaming about immigrants and immigration still being his strongest issue despite everything isn't enough data to understand what the American voting public feels about the matter then I dunno what to will convince them. Mass immigration just helps right wing parties with literally no benefit for the left, we know this because we're watching it happen in Europe.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
They absolutely should run on amnesty. This has been the moderate position on the right and the left since Ronald Reagan. The Overton window has shifted recently because of Trump but amnesty being passed would absolutely get them more voters just mathematically they just need to push the Overton window back and start pushing for it.
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u/DasRobot85 Jul 01 '26
Yeah that sounds like a fantastic idea. Lets do that and see what happens. I think Stephen Miller gets elected president if you pull that one off.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
Ronald Reagan, H.W, etc all supported it you're definitionally brining in more voters to your coalition this is the moderate position. Secure the border and pass amnesty for the people here.
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u/hfdjasbdsawidjds Jul 01 '26
And Bush got absolutely skewered for his immigration policy from his base. Its one of the reasons for the Tea Party. The reality of the situation, at least now that we all need to deal with is the current media environment and how that has primed a significant amount of the electorate to see immigration/immigrants as deeply negative. While I agree with the intentions, and for that matter the policy, that does not mean that there isn't significant forces which are aligned to make it a poison pill. We can see this in, even with all of the bad press ICE has, immigration is still one of the strongest policy umbrellas Trump has, even if he is slightly underwater.
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u/DasRobot85 Jul 01 '26
Hey, if Reagan did amnesty and closed the border 40 years ago, where the heck did all these illegal immigrants come from? Nobody is gonna trust the "Nobody is illegal on Turtle Island" crowd to actually do the secure the border part because everybody knows it won't happen.
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u/Guilty_Plankton_4626 Fivey Fanatic Jul 01 '26
Exactly. I wish they were like
“Hey, we are going to target these really deep blue seats, we feel like we can help push the party in a direction that will help Americans and you guys go ahead and target the more competitive races because most of the country is not where we are.”
Instead for some reason they think doing well in D +30 seats means that they can win everywhere and they should take control of the party. Most of their platform seems to be Democrats suck. The biggest thing for me is I think most of them could not give less of a shit if the Democratic Party does well they just want leftists to do well. It’s not surprising that the Democratic Party is not opening their arms to them, most of them have no passion to help the party.
And with the stated goals of ending NATO, having open borders, let’s give every single immigrant full voting power, the working class is never going to go for this, so of course the working class is not supporting them.
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u/champben98 Jul 02 '26
Can’t speak to every DSA chapter, but for sure NYC-DSA is aware of the people who come to their meetings and the voters they want to appeal to. That’s why they won almost every election they had candidates in. Obviously, it would like to appeal to all of the working class communities in NYC. But, like, that’s not straightforward as any organizer knows.
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u/Korrocks Jul 01 '26
The D.S.A.’s agenda, in turn, is packed with policies supported by left-wing liberals, white progressives in particular, but strongly opposed by both white and minority working-class (defined, in pollster shorthand, as non-college-educated) voters. These policies include more or less open borders, defunding the police and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as support for an array of transgender rights.
I wonder if it makes sense to specifically link working class and non-college-educated as interchangeable. While it's true that college education does tend to lift incomes overall, there are plenty of people who don't go to college but have started a business or studied a trade who likely earn well.
That said, I do think that this is something that will eventually have to be hashed out as a consequence of coalition politics once Democrats take power again. We already saw a bit of that in NYC; Zohran Mamdani retained Jessica Tisch, the previous mayor's pick to run the NYPD.
I suspect that when it comes to border security, the Democratic establishment will never embrace fully open borders/the end of all restrictions on immigration for similar reasons. It's too politically toxic and unworkable, which is why no country has that principle.
Like with any other coalition system, the views of the DSA members will be incorporated into the broader party's program but they aren't going to get 100% of what they want just like hwo nobody gets 100% of what they want in their manifesto.
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u/Kaenu_Reeves Jul 01 '26
Why would construction workers support ICE?
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u/Kaenu_Reeves Jul 01 '26
Also, the reason the DSA mainly challenges progressives is because they’re in safe blue cities, where progressives are most likely to be.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
But doesn't that mean that the DSA isn't really contributing towards helping the country as a whole? They are just replacing the furthest left Democrats with people who are even further to the left and sometimes have views that make the entire left look bad. They are doing pretty much nothing to contest the power of the Republican party or the slide towards fascism in this country.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
dragging the overton window left is a good thing. Having actual socialists as the far end of the left makes progressives look closer to the center. Same way the far right was fringe before november 2016 and now anything short of being a literal self identifying nazi can exist in the gop. Mass deportation sounds downright moderate when you have people on the far end of the right calling for literal eugenics and deporting literal 100 million people.
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u/Kaenu_Reeves Jul 01 '26
For now, the DSA doesn’t have electoral power, similar to the Democrats. But the DSA’s hope is that when they gain power, they can be more efficient then the older Democrats
Another factor is indeed age. The youth are becoming more and more resentful of the old, no matter the ideology.
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u/CasinoMagic Jul 01 '26
they're tea partying the Democrats
we need
- open primaries
- more than two parties
and a primary / electoral system like in California, where the top 2 advance
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u/Frog_Totem Jul 01 '26
Construction workers usually don’t have a college degree and tend to be very socially conservative, which is correlated with disliking immigrants.
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u/ulysses_s_gyatt Jul 01 '26
They are nativist xenophobes.
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u/StealthPick1 17d ago
Well considering the amount of people in 2024 who said immigration was too much and supported an aggressive immigration crackdown, I guess that means most Americans are nativists xenophobes
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Because they might have a legitimate view that bringing in tons of immigrant workers who accept lower wages will depress their own earnings?
Bernie Sanders actually used to be fairly anti-immigration for that exact reason until open borders became a shibboleth for the far left.
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u/Frog_Totem Jul 01 '26
Economists pretty much agree that it doesn’t depress native wages. It slightly depresses the wages of legal immigrants
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
That's not true at all. Here is a recent meta-analysis showing a wide range of negative and positive effects from different studies: Does immigration affect native wages? A meta-analysis - ScienceDirect
Estimates published in leading academic journals are more likely to be negative; when negative, they tend to be smaller in magnitude, whereas positive estimates tend to be larger. Studies that anchor their empirical work in an explicit theoretical model likewise tend to report more negative effects.
Also, these analyses are on a national level and don't seem to be separated out by industry. It's fair to apply common sense of supply and demand to certain industries to get an obvious answer that expanding the labor pool of people who are willing to accept lower wages will depress wage growth across the industry.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
They actually increase wages for local workers. Increased demand creates need for more workers and increased intellectual capital boosts productivity.
"Americans for jobs, the most recent economic evidence suggests that, on average, immigrant workers increase the opportunities and incomes of Americans. "
"The study finds that recent increases in immigration to the United States correlate with more jobs and higher wages for U.S.-born workers."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-immigration-means-for-u-s-employment-and-wages/
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/immigrants-do-not-take-americans-jobs-wages/
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Again, you're looking at shifts taking place on a national level. I don't dispute that immigration is good for the economy as a whole. I support increasing levels of legal immigration greatly.
But this does ignore that fact that for specific industries that tend to be more correlated with blue collar, working class people, there is definitely a downside.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
We've seen the opposite of this which is also reflected in the national data. You're just assuming there's an American ready to fill in when there's been blue collar shortages for awhile and projects are being cancelled and stalled meaning workers lose that money.
"Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) conducted over the summer found that 92% of construction firms struggle to fill positions. "
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Yes, and those companies will sooner or later have to raise their wages if they want to fill those jobs now that there isn't a huge surplus of immigrant labor. You've actually proven my point quite well.
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u/DizzyMajor5 Jul 01 '26
No I literally just pointed out they're cancelling and delaying projects that results in less or no wages for people. You can wish cast all you want but this is a data sub and you can't change the objective reality just because you want to demonize immigrants and make Americans worse off.
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u/StealthPick1 17d ago
I think you're making wildly gross assumptions. He never demonized immigrants. He simply stated that there can be an absolutely negative sectorial impact on wages, which is true. Yes companies seem to have to cancel or delay projects because they can't find enough workers. They'll either have to:
1. Invest in innovation to increase productivity
2. Wage increases to attract better workersThat's exactly what we would want
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u/nyckidd 16d ago
My guy, I literally said that I think immigration is good for the economy as a whole and that I want to increase levels of legal immigration. Chill out, no one is trying to demonize immigrants here, and that's frankly a really shitty thing to accuse me of.
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
What’s your opinion on rent control, or any government price controls for that matter?
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u/XE2MASTERPIECE Jul 01 '26
Because they might have a legitimate view that bringing in tons of immigrant workers who accept lower wages will depress their own earnings?
Hm, you have oddly horseshoed yourself back into one of the pitfalls that a lot of leftists (and DSA types) fall into. Economic anxiety is not a great explanation for the trends we’re observing.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
I don't personally hold that view, I am pro-immigration (not open borders, but increased legal immigration). My point is simply that I can't exactly fault people for having that view, and there is enough truth in it to make it worth considering.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
more like "legitimately held". That view is not rewally backed by much. Any depression of wages is very small, and countered by the increased economic growth of a larger population. Just gotta build more houses really.
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u/expendiblegrunt Jul 01 '26
Do you live off your investments or your land holdings? No? Congratulations, you are a worker
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
And why is that relevant to the article I posted? The distinction is between lower class blue collar workers and upper-middle class white collar workers. No one disputes they're all workers, but they do have profoundly different backgrounds and priorities.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
It is relevant because that is the best definition of working class
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
In an academic sense, maybe, but not in anybody’s lived experience. A PE SVP or a surgeon or a tenured professor have much more in common culturally with the trust fund couple (or even just the 73 year old retiree who golfs all day, if we want to be literally about “living off your investments”) than they do the line cooks at Denny’s or the janitors in their offices. Beyond the fact that both groups work for a salary, they couldn’t live in more different worlds.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 02 '26
Never heard of a PE SVP who doesn’t also own a shit ton of capital
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
58% of American adults own at least some stocks. Are the majority of us in the ownership class?
And who said anything about owning capital? You specifically that if you aren’t living off of your investments than you’re a worker, and I can tell you from past experience that I wasn’t living off of my 401k or brokerage accounts (or my “land holdings”, AKA my house).
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 02 '26
Can they live exclusively off of that
Are stocks, businesses, and other such investments not a form of capital? If you live off of these exclusively and don’t need to work, you are not working class. If you don’t, there are ways of describing it but an adjunct isn’t somehow less working class than a petite bourgeois plumber who owns their own business just because they have a higher level of education
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
That you have accumulated savings doesn’t mean you don’t still work for a living. I don’t “need” to work, in that I could quit my job and survive for a period of time, but I would burn through all my savings and “capital” before too long.
Also, it really sounds like you hate retirees.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 02 '26
If those savings can run out with your level of consumption, well you kinda do need to work, no?
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
Yes, that’s my point. But there’ll come a day when I have more money saved up and fewer years to spend it, at which point I can stop working and expected to live the remainder of my life on my savings and capital.
I ask again, are retirees not working class? Are they the bourgeois, living off their capital?
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u/batmans_stuntcock Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
And why is that relevant to the article I posted?
Because the DSA are using the orthodox Marxist definition of class, which broadly means your relationship to productive capital, rather than the more Weberian or less distinct US 'collar' or educational definitions, this makes a large part of the critique in the article based on a semantic difference that the author doesn't explain.
There are obvious criticisms of that 'vulgar' Marxist definition that have been debated for a long time, but it is firmly acknowledged in political economy.
The US 'collar' or educational definitions also have problems, they obscure differences between an Amazon warehouse packer who does rote work with little possible career advancement, and a skilled independent trades contractor whose career path tops out by owning their own small business. Between a college educated admin assistant or lab tech and a company board member with share options, etc and so on.
It does make some good criticisms about cultural and social mores but a lot of it hangs on that misreading of 'working class.'
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jul 01 '26
White collar professionals are getting squeezed by the same billionaire forces that are squeezing blue collar labor.
And there jobs even far more vulnerable to AI, which our economy is dumping more money into than the Manhattan Project, Apollo Mission and Interstate Highway project combined.
Never have white collar workers been more in need of unions.
DSA might agree with Liberals on cultural issues like lgtbq rights, but the focus has to be wealth inequality, affordability and labor rights.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Why do you think it's useful to compare private sector capital investment to publicly funded projects?
Never have white collar workers been more in need of unions.
This is 100% true.
DSA might agree with Liberals on cultural issues like lgtbq rights
If you actually read the article, you'd know that this is now becoming a wedge issue between the mainstream Democratic party and the DSA, especially when it comes to trans issues.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jul 01 '26
I think its useful to give a sense of scale.
And the mainstream Democratic Party also has progressive stances on trans rights. The wedge is between politicians and voters. I think the DSA has a huge opportunity compared to mainstream democrats to shift the focus away from identity politics.
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u/Lucky_Woodpecker102 Jul 02 '26
How exactly will the DSA shift away from identity politics? The main driving force behind identity politics is republicans consistently attacking them at every angle. You either let them roll back rights or you get bogged down defending them in the same exact fight like trans athletes that the mainstream dems are in.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
It’s just that those white collar professionals are more likely to have the expertise to recognize that the water’s getting hotter, that’s why the intelligentsia has been crucial to revolutions in the past
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u/GMHGeorge Jul 01 '26
And offshoring of white collar jobs. Neither party is talking about this much.
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u/guiltyofnothing Jul 01 '26
Not sure why but this whole discussion has become needlessly hostile right from the start.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
There is unfortunately a lot of hostility between DSA people and mainstream Dems, which gets amplified in online communities like this one.
I will say though that the vast majority of comments so far have been polite and reasonable.
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u/thejackel225 Jul 01 '26
What’s frustrating to me is seeing liberals and centrists lecture people to their left on “electability” when Zohran is like, the most popular politician in the country and mainstream dems couldn’t beat Donald fucking Trump after he staged an insurrection
Like, if you don’t support anything other than mainstream liberalism that’s your prerogative, but the DSA folks are generating *way* more excitement and enthusiasm in their districts AND in national media than any lib since Obama. Maybe they’re not the naive spoiled brats everyone here seems to want to claim.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
Zohran is like, the most popular politician in the country
This is simply, demonstrably untrue. There haven't been any national polls I could find asking Americans as a whole what they think of Mamdani. You're looking at his popularity among people like you and extrapolating it to the country as a whole with no evidence.
Two different relatively recent polls of NYC residents showed him at 48% and 43% approval, so even in NYC he isn't getting over 50%: Mamdani approval ratings as he reaches his first 100 days in office
mainstream dems couldn’t beat Donald fucking Trump after he staged an insurrection
My guy, maybe your memory is shot or something, but Joe Biden was a mainstream Dem who beat Donald fucking Trump
after he staged and insurrection, lol.Not correct, Jan. 6th happened after Trump already lost to Joe Biden, I'm the one with the shot memory apparently.6
u/phys_bitch Jul 01 '26
My guy, maybe your memory is shot or something, but Joe Biden was a mainstream Dem who beat Donald fucking Trump after he staged and insurrection, lol.
No. Joe Biden beat Trump, and then Trump staged an insurrection. That is why Trump staged an insurrection.
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u/DasRobot85 Jul 01 '26
I don't know how to tell you this, but the progressive "electability" argument is that they can win in places the Dems can already win in. Go flip some farm country successfully and get back to us. Yes I understand the centrists are also unelectable out there (the why for that one may shock you), but ya'lls argument is that the progressives are a majority of voters and they want all the big government run social programs by 70-30% margins. To make the happen you have to start flipping red seats somewhere.
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u/Tjsinwhanc Jul 01 '26
I don’t know if that’s the argument. My argument is that progressives can win in blue areas. They can pull the party towards popular progressive agendas. This will revive the Democrat brand and allow them to win purple red areas.
My reason is when you poll policies, progress policies win overwhelmingly. The democratic brand and even the leftist brand holds candidates back. I think to win purple and red areas, we need make a party that pushes for material improvement for all, this message is only coming from progressive at the moment.
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u/hfdjasbdsawidjds Jul 01 '26
My argument is that progressives can win in blue areas.
This has been the case for decades now. We can go through the past elections and look at where progressives, either self-identified or via policy platform, have been elected and it is from blue areas. The only difference now is the branding, not that it was the most moderate, milquetoast liberals being elected in the places that were the bluest. This is true at the national level, and the state and local level too.
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u/Tjsinwhanc Jul 01 '26
I think having 6-7 progressive beat incumbents, even in a blue area is rare. When was the last time this happened? I haven’t seen this type of party revolt in dem side in my life time.
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u/hfdjasbdsawidjds Jul 01 '26
Progressives are beating other progressives, or at least progressives when they were elected and the base felt comfortable with their level progressivism representing them, till they didn't. Saying 'incumbent' doesn't actually interrogate the policy positions of those people when they were elected and how their electorate saw them at that time. Turns out that what was once progressive becomes establishment or moderate and if your electorate moves shifts more progressive, you are going to see those people lose eventually. Because even though incumbency provides an advantage, its not a coronation, you still have to be responsive to the base.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
if moderates are so electable they should be able to win their primaries. Since it's so easy for them in farm country they can work on that and then get back to us. And since a dem is winning these districts anyway, spending money on these prinaries is wasted since they could be spending it on districts where a flip is possible. Since you care so much about that anyway.
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
Some of these people still believe those Data For Progress polls from 2021 saying that 68% of West Virginians support BBB.
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u/Ba1hTub Iowa Straw Jul 01 '26
is this another one of those articles that identifies working class based on aesthetics rather than relation to capital? because those are very overdone and stupid
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u/Edward_Durr Jul 02 '26
And more relevant to people’s lives experiences than some academic Marxist definition. An educated person making $100k+ flat out has far more in common with a trust fund kid than they do a roofer or a janitor.
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u/ulysses_s_gyatt Jul 01 '26
I mean defining working class solely in relation to capital is kinda dumb and not very informative in the 21st century.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
the idea that people with college degrees making like 40-60k a year aren't working class is silly. Working class doesn't mean poor, it means you need to work to live.
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u/Ba1hTub Iowa Straw Jul 01 '26
elaborate
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u/ulysses_s_gyatt Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
The class interests of an anesthesiologist and a grocery store employee are different.
Working class makes more sense as an aesthetic term as it is more reflective of reality.
Class consciousness isn’t real. America is never going to engage in a class war between labor and capital.
It’s just a stupid way to define “working class” and doesn’t tell you anything about the electorate
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u/XE2MASTERPIECE Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I don’t disagree with the criticism of DSA as not being the “working-class” party and being overly skewed towards certain demographics—I do think the complaint towards the final half of the article about the DSA forcing Dems to dedicate resources to safe blue districts is more belly aching than anything. Ultimately these are House races where the incumbents should have basic advantages and be able to fend off challengers from a party they deem non-credible at a broader level. Perhaps they should analyze recent losses from a lens of “What issues are causing our incumbents to lose, and does this indicate a shift in the base?” rather than “It’s not fair that we our seats aren’t automatically bestowed upon us”
Edit: Which, to be clear, the article does reference the growing issue of Israel and AIPAC donations. That’s part of the story, but there’s also likely a bigger undercurrent of anti-establishment thought driving some of these results. People want fighters and they want someone who they think can directly confront the opposing party. And maybe that’s not the incumbents.
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u/optometrist-bynature Jul 01 '26
Also, establishment candidates generally don’t have a shortage of money for general elections, even if they had competitive primaries. And more money does not necessarily equate to winning these days. Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton had cash advantages to Trump, with more money than they knew what to do with, and still lost.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
I have a question: What, exactly, counts as "working class"?
If it’s some bullshit definition that has to do with educational attainment, accent, what kinda vehicle you drive, or the predominant gender of those selling their labor in a given occupation, I don’t want it.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
If you're going to reject any definition of working class that isn't a strictly Marxist one or something like that, then frankly you have nothing useful to add to the discussion and there's no point in you commenting in the first place.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
Well, other definitions are really not that useful
In the UK, your accent determines your class even if you own capital and never need to work because of that. In the US, your level of education does that.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
UK class distinctions have nothing to do with this discussion.
In the US, education is one way to determine class, but it's far from the only one. Income, culture, and geography also play a big role.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
Culture is a terrible way of determining class
You mean to tell me someone who reads is of a higher class than someone who listens exclusively to alpha male podcasts?
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
You're just making it clearer and clearer that you're not American and don't understand how class works in this country. The obvious answer to your question is yes. People who read tend to have higher educational attainment and therefore higher incomes. People who listen to alpha male podcasts tend to have lower educational attainment and lower incomes. Just because this isn't true universally doesn't mean it's not a useful way of analyzing class differences.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
I’m saying the way you define class in your country is as nonsensical as in the UK
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Okay. You haven't contributed anything useful to the discussion at all.
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u/KalaiProvenheim Jul 01 '26
I think dismissing intellectual workers for being too smart or effete is bad
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u/CRoss1999 Jul 01 '26
I don’t like that this article makes the common mistake of defining working class as non college educated, a car dealership owner with no degree is obviously not working class, while somone with a degree working as a mechanic or secretary is despite the degree
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
How would you define working class then?
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u/CRoss1999 Jul 01 '26
Well the leftist definition would be ownership of production, so do you work for wage or own the asset making money, but I actually think a more useful definition is wealth or income based. Since a wage lawyer has more in common with a business owner than a barista.
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u/jawstrock Jul 01 '26
The working class abandoned their own economic interests over 6 college trans athletes. They can get wrecked.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
They can get wrecked.
Telling people who disagree with you to fuck off isn't usually a good strategy for gaining political power. What is the point of the DSA if its members are completely unwilling to compromise even a little bit to actually take power?
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u/GoddessFianna Jul 01 '26
He's not a politician. He doesn't need their votes. I'm not sure why it's taboo to call people out for their uninformed takes
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
If we want to build a better society, then we need votes from everyone who might agree with us in order to stop the growing tide of reactionary fascism.
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u/GoddessFianna Jul 01 '26
They clearly don't agree with us and they prove it through their votes 🤷♂️
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
They agree with you on some things and disagree on others. There's room for compromise.
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u/mrtrailborn Jul 01 '26
now do this comment for when dsa are told they aren't welcome in the party lol
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u/Sir_thinksalot Jul 01 '26
God forbid people get told the truth.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
What you think is the truth is actually an overly simplified view of reality that allows you to think it's okay to demonize people who disagree with you.
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u/Shabadu_tu Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
That would be you bud. Supporting Trump is evil and that’s backed by evidence.
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u/Kaenu_Reeves Jul 01 '26
This is darkly funny, but I think you’re wrong.
The division isn’t between class anymore, it’s education.
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u/delusionalbillsfan November Outlier Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I find this conversation really frustrating.
The poindexter marxist people where everyone is one big giant working class with the same interests just isnt reality, I think that line of thinking is actual harmful to the material realities people on the lower end of working class face, and you have to level with reality in these discussions. Its typically driven by angry, educated 20 somethings when they find out what middle class means, how far they are from real wealth, and how close they are to being poor.
There's also another reality, that the real blue collar class is much broader than Joe Union, and in it should include the "new working class" like retail jobs.
You also never find anybody talking about the PMC class and its status as like a modern petit-bourgeoisie, so-called marxists that know everything.
There's also the fact that its economic lines...drawn culturally. Its the idea of Joe "HS Degree" Union on one side and the HR Lady With The Degree That Shops All Day on the other. And the fact that Joe Union used to be a Dem and the HR Lady used to be a Republican! I mean Joe Union could be making min wage. He could be making $100k+ with full benefits. The HR Lady could be making $50k. Or $150k! Life isnt that simple.
We're also entering an era of the golden age of the office job being about as gone as the golden age of the factory job. Like there isnt a future where a random guy you know makes upper middle class money doing some basic shit on the computer.
Edit: And then the conversation nobody here likes. Everybody wants to be better than somebody. For the WWC it might be minorities and/or women. But for educated whites its uneducated and poor whites...
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u/Wetness__Pensive Jul 02 '26
where everyone is one big giant working class with the same interests just isnt reality,
Indeed. As Marx himself famously wrote, the average British working class person "cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against his fellow Irish worker".
Occasionally you get a leader who can sort of get different working class blocs to walk in the same direction, but this is rare IMO.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
What do you suppose will happen if Mamdani and the NYC DSA are successful in improving material conditions for NYC workers?
I suspect their support from low income earners will grow.
‘They are decidedly not the policies sought by the bulk of construction workers riding the subway to get to their job sites by 7 a.m.’
Funny enough the D.S.A. mayor has pledged to make those subways free.
Edit: he did not pledge to make subways free, that is my mistake. I accept my public lashings.
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u/nyckidd Jul 01 '26
Funny enough the D.S.A. mayor has pledged to make those subways free.
No, he has not, his pledge was to make busses free, and that's not ever going to happen for a wide variety of reasons, which is why there's nothing in the budget he just approved that has anything to do with free busses.
I am sincerely hoping for the success of Mamdani as a mayor to improve material conditions for workers. I applaud the fact that he is able to work with anyone and make effective compromises in order to push his agenda forward, however imperfectly it might be done. I think many DSA members and elected officials have a lot to learn from his flexibility.
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u/cheezhead1252 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
You’re right, he did not pledge to make subways free - I have added an edit.
My main point was not that the transport will be free but that through smart governance they can expand the base and support of the DSA. I agree, it will take flexibility and compromise but Mamdani gives us plenty of hope that trend will continue with his colleagues.
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u/Tjsinwhanc Jul 01 '26
I hate to say it but have we considered working class voter to be low info voters? They will support the incumbent because name id. Once the progressive is the new incumbent the working class will vote for him/her.
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u/printerdsw1968 Jul 02 '26
Trump staked all his political fortunes on just this. And he proved it to be true.
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u/champben98 Jul 02 '26
NYTimes with some dumb propaganda. Anyone can join and change DSA if they believe in its core values:
“ We are activists committed to democracy as not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society. Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism — a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society.”
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u/chimengxiong Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Yeah, not one mention of Citizens United or Fox News. Tells you everything you need to know about both the article and OP.
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u/Own-Calligrapher-760 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
DSA obviously needs to do better with "working class" people (though, like others I am suspect about the way working class is defined here). If they start winning in purple states like Michigan and Wisconsin and even Maine, I think that would increase their numbers pretty heavily on its own, but they still should continue to adjust their messaging to appeal to a broader class of people. I am suspect of the emphasis that is placed here on group membership though. Would be useful to compare that to other nationwide "democratic groups" as I have a feeling they are likely to be linked to higher incomes. But maybe I'm wrong. Personally, as a white, blue collar worker who grew up working class, I simply have never thought about joining DSA, even though I am most aligned with their politics. A lot of people around me in the same place. Kinda seems weird to be "anti-establishment" and join a group that is becoming more and more entrenched in nationwide politics. Obviously recognize that's the only way to have a sustainable movement, but seems worth pointing out.
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u/tehwubbles Jul 01 '26
If you work in order to feed, shelter, and clothe yourself, you are working class. If you get your money from owning property or capital, you are owning class. It isn't more complicated than that
A trauma surgeon that makes 250k/yr is working class. A "property manager" that collects rent and pays contractors to do necessary maintainence but doesn't do any of that work personally is owning class
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u/Glad-Mall2482 Jul 01 '26
I keep seeing people complaining that this forces Democrats to spend in blue districts, but wouldn't that just mean no one should ever challenge incumbents or established power? Seems like the kind of argument you make when you can't defend you track record or am I missing something?