[act-ma] Today @ noon (Eastern): The Sinking Middle Class w/David Roediger

[Suren Moodliar]

Pioneering scholar of working class history & consciousness, David Roediger
discusses his most recent book, "The Sinking Middle" w/Bobbi-lee Smart.
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2021, 12 noon (EDT)
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Join co-hosts Rachel Patten and Bobbi-lee Smart in a conversation with
David Roediger about his new book, *The Sinking Middle Class*
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OR Books: Joe Biden’s current emphasis on the “American middle class” is
typical of centrist Democrat strategy. It is used as a cudgel to defend the
party against more radical demands that could win over working-class voters
and non-voters. For Republicans, it provides a foil for disingenuous
appeals to the “white working class.” Donald Trump’s 2016 victory made full
use of such rhetoric.

Yet, as David Roediger makes clear in a pointed and persuasive polemic,
this obsession with the middle-class is relatively new in US politics. It
began with the attempt to win back so-called “Reagan Democrats” by Bill
Clinton and his legendary pollster Stanley Greenberg. It was accompanied by
a pandering to racism and a shying away from meaningful wealth
redistribution that continues to this day.

Drawing on rich traditions of radical social thought, Roediger disavows the
thinly sourced idea that the United States was, for much of its history, a
“middle-class” nation and the still more indefensible position that it is
one now. The increasing immiseration of large swathes of middle-income
America, only accelerated by the current pandemic, nails a fallacy that is
a major obstacle to progressive change.
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