The U.S. working class and its role in electing Trump

Joan C. Williams wrote a very informative and cool-headed piece in The Harvard Business Review on what the Democratic Party's strategy got wrong about working class U.S. citizens, and how much this influenced the votes of masses of people.

Williams summarizes several ways in which working class people are misrepresented by Democrats and mainstream media. She emphasizes, that working class people in the U.S. are usually solid middle class, nevertheless are usually presented as poor. Also, often when Democrats focused on policies benefiting the poor, they didn't take into account that these policies would not affect in any beneficial way the middle classes, including working class people. These are surely important and significant points to make, and Williams makes them with admirable clarity.

In this entry I want to discuss two issues she mentions:
- The fact that some working class voters turned away from the Democrats because they detest professionals, teachers, and researchers, and the rhetoric of Democrats was too intellectual.
- That 'manly dignity', male pride, is important to several working class voters.

Williams doesn't say that either of these two things is good. She just highlights them as something that a party that wants to win the elections cannot forget. This is very sound pragmatic advice.

My main issue is the following: while there certainly are many neglected aspects of working class existence these days in the U.S. which should have been addressed by the Democrats, the two attitudes highlighted by Williams and mentioned before are very hard to accept for someone leaning towards enlightenment ideals. Endorsing that people can improve themselves and their society underlies the drive for continuous social improvement. And hence it is very hard to campaign in a way that caters to voters who oppose academics, intellectuals, and white collar workers. Of course this doesn't mean that such voters are bad people. But it does mean that their views of how the world works are very one-sided: while recognizing the importance of skills, experience and expertise in some fields, they play down the importance and legitimacy of these aspects in other fields.

This is what the Republican party, the Christian church, and Trump have both relied on in making many perfectly obvious questions seem controversial:
There is no serious debate regarding whether evolution is the process through which humans came to be what they are.
There is no serious evidence showing that allowing equal pay and equal rights regardless of gender and race has any bad implications for society.
There is no serious debate regarding climate change. It is happening and it will be devastating.
Still, Trump and others have managed to present these issues as if they would still be open questions in the sense, that they haven't been substantially argued for and supported by evidence. They have.
What Trump and others relied on in undermining such perfectly legitimate expert consensus was in part the fact that a number of voters don't have basic science and cultural literacy, they don't understand what researchers, scientists, managers, etc. are doing, and they are suspicious or even antagonistic towards them.

These attitudes surely need to be changed. What to do? Since it seems that simple explanation, fun talks, public intellectuals, politicians who campaign to get the word out are not enough, Williams might actually be right: maybe we should rely on the man-pride of those voters who couldn't get on board with the Democrats because they felt neglected. It might be that if they think they are being cared for, they matter, and they are on the winning team, they would be more open to think in progressive ways.
Still, their resistance is worrying, and it is sad that this is what we would need to rely on. In the long run one can only hope that most people come to understand that in itself neither their social position, nor their gender, or how important they themselves feel that their problems are, can justify ignorance. This in turn will hopefully lead to a more informed and critical acceptance to science and society related issues. Such a stance would enable to endorse the views of proper experts and to neglect fakes. The general idea that the world is too complex now for us to look to one politicians who thinks he himself is the source of authority on every question needs to seep through.

Of course such a change would be much better facilitated by conversations than by talking down. On the other hand it is hard to have the patience to do this all the time, just to save the egos of people who are unwilling to adapt, but whom we do want the best for, and also need them on our team.

If interested in more depth in the connection between work, traditional gender roles, and working class life in affluent Western countries, Williams also has a number of publications, and her recent books (2012 and 2014) discuss these issues. I'm sure many readers would find them interesting, and they can provide plenty of insight.

Defending climate scientists from ridiculous lawsuits

The climate change deniers are in full swing in many places, but most strongly in the U.S.

If you have a few spare bucks ($5, $10, or more) you can support efficient legal defense for scientists who are attacked for political reasons. The goal of many republicans and industry moguls is to slow down or make the work of climate researchers impossible. What we need is to join up and show them that they can't simply shut up the researchers standing up for our needs and goals as a society.

Let's show these greedy jerks. If the state is unwilling to stand up to them and shoot down their stupid actions, we have to get together and push back.

Masuji Ibuse's 'Black Rain'

I've just finished Masuji Ibuse's 1969 novel Black Rain. It is an excellent novel. It presents the story of a small family from a village near to Hiroshima a few years after the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. The tone is - as in several the works of many Japanese writers - very matter of fact, and giving a good feel of the character of the storyteller, Shigematsu Shizuma. Despite the sometimes dry tone in which what was seen is recounted, Shigematsu's genuine concern for friends and family shines true at the important points. Ibuse's book offers some very dramatic turns which can be felt in full force. It is emotionally moving, and tragic.

It mainly deals with how radiation effect crept up years after the bombing on many of those who thought they would be fine, they would survive. It was interesting to read the book in the same year as Svetlana Alexievich's Chernobyl Prayer. Both books tell stories of loss, of patriotic or nationalistic feeling that motivated people to help and work among the debris of nuclear catastrophes, and the tragedy of not knowing what they were dealing with. At the time the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima the Japanese - including doctors - had no idea about the effects of radiation, and at the time of the Chernobyl catastrophe the masses of people living in the regions affected, as well as those who were sent there for relief work were kept in the dark about those effects. Both books tell about much suffering, but also about remarkable cases of community spirit and a feeling of belonging to the places, even after they have been affected by catastrophes. Of course the Japanese - with the help of the U.S. - dealt with Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the war was very different from the way in which Moscov - and Belarus and the Ukraine - handled the consequences of Chernobyl.

Ibuse's book mentions criticisms of the Japanese Imperial government, army, and navy only in a very subdued way. It is hard to guess today whether this is a literary tool employed by the writer to express that people were genuinely afraid to criticise the leadership and the army, even at the end of the war, or simply a reluctance to engage in such criticism when he wrote the book. What makes the former interpretation more likely is that in some places in the novel there is a marked contrast of descriptions of malpractice, mistreatment of civilians and soldiers by the military, still people who are obviously aware of the ridiculousness of what was going on are silent. The horrible plans of the army to arm all civilians to defend Japan against the invasion of the U.S. forces is mentioned in several places - in no way favourably -, also showing that there were people who genuinely believed - or at least talked as if they would believe - in such policies.

The book is another great argument for never again wanting a war and strictly keeping away from using nuclear weapons ever, in any situation. This makes it an especially relevant book to debates today, when the Russian military publicized in the last years that it carried out practices for scenarios of nuclear strikes against European targets, and where the false rumour was spread that the U.S. was threatening Russia with a nuclear war (this is supposed to have been averted by the election of Trump).

Russia is obviously at a point where it is under huge international pressure, and it Putin, his government, and his generals are willing to go to great lengths. Novels like Ibuse's and Alexievich's can help people understand in Russia, the U.S. and everywhere else, that threatening with nuclear strikes is a horrible thing to do, and any use of atomic bombs that affects civilians is a terrible crime. Tension and Russian propaganda need to be defused. Merkel and Obama have gone to great lengths to achieve this. However, Putin is willing to risk much, and Trump is fool enough - so it seems at the moment - to go along with his games.

You can read a review of Black Rain from The Japan Times here.

On voting and basic knowledge and understanding

"[J]ust having the right to vote is meaningless if a citizen is disenfranchised by illiteracy or semi-literacy. Illiterate and semi-literate Americans are condemned not only to poverty, but also to the powerlessness of incomprehension. Knowing that the do not understand the issues, and feeling prey to manipulative oversimplifications, they do not trust the system of which they are supposed to be the masters. They do not feel themselves to be active participants in our republic, and they often do not turn out to vote. the civic importance of cultural literacy lies in the fact that true enfranchisement depends upon knowledge, knowledge upon literacy, and literacy upon cultural literary. To be truly literate, citizens must be able to grasp the meaning of any piece of writing addressed to the general."

E. D. Hirsch What Every American Needs to Know: Cultural Literacy, p. 12.

The U.S. is a huge country, with a great population, lots of different school providers and standards, and myriads of beliefs and views. However one thing that became obvious lately - as it does during every election campaign - was that there are plenty of voters who are not really able to engage with complex information. Since they cannot do that they cannot form a realistic idea of what the U.S.'s position is like in the world, nor of what is going on in their own country. This led to many fruitless and silly debates. (This isn't just an issue for Trump supporters, although it is a pronounced one for many Trump supporters.)

What Hirsch proposed and argued for in part of his work, was that education should equip people both with the skills and some particular basics of how to handle and deal with knowledge about their nation. That this would be quite useful is now obvious. There is a danger of course that such proposals can be hijacked by the state to push its own agenda and teach students an ideology or a nationalist vision which fosters loyalty even if the governments is doing evil. However, Hirsch's recommendations are fairly particular and interesting, and an updated core knowledge elements might be a welcome and useful tool against technocracy and cultural illiteracy.

Here you can have a look at Hirsch's bio at the site of the Core Knowledge Foundation he set up.

 And you can go on reading a bit about cultural literacy and some connected debates in The Atlantic and The Guardian.

On the Trump presidency

Some articles (like this one in The Independent and this one in The Washington Post) mention two possibilities:

1. That Trump might not be as hot-headed and aggressive as he acted in his campaign, and that
2. a Trump presidency might be better for international military politics, because Trump said that he would be reluctant to wage wars if they are costly, or to defend allies if they don't pay towards their defense.

Both of these ideas are mistaken and there is no reason for hope and optimism.

With concern to 1.: The question is not whether Trump might be more sensible than the way he made himself look in his campaign. The question is if there is any good reason to think that is more sensible. There isn't. He was consistently haphazard, offensive, chaotic, unprepared, and unprofessional.

With concern to 2.: I've read in many places that Trump wants to talk to Putin and that is a good thing. Saying this makes it obvious that many - even intelligent - people believe that the U.S. administration and military is not maintaining constant close discussions on many topics with Russia. This is of course a false idea. Russia and the U.S. don't collide on many issues because they don't communicate.
Also, people who think that when Trump said he would talk with Russia that was a considered, serious thing haven't listened to his other ideas. He is just sputtering populist phrases. Whatever works at the moment. He knows as much about strategy, military issues, and economic competition with Russia as about other topics: next to nothing. As soon as he is seriously briefed and informed, if he even understands what he is being told, which is not sure, he might change his mind.

The same is the case concerning his ideas that the U.S. shouldn't offer defense arrangements for Japan, South-Korea and the Philippines. There are three enormous confusions here:
i) the U.S. does not offer defense. Japan had to accept that the U.S. military is stationed there at the end of the occupation following WWII. South-Korea had to accept the troops after the Korean war. The Philippines used to be a de facto U.S. colony. Also, Japan and South-Korea pay huge amounts towards the maintenance of the bases that the U.S. troops are using and towards the costs of the U.S. military.
Third, it is far from obvious that these countries really wanted the U.S. to station their troops there. That the U.S. is there ensures that these countries collide in their diplomacy with their other neighbours, Russia and China. If the U.S. troops would not be there these countries would have much more space for diplomatic manouvering and for looking out for their own interests. It is however part of the U.S. position that there can't be any powerful opponents on its borders. Canada and Mexico are no threats, across the Atlantic is a bloc of NATO countries, and Japan and South-Korea, as well as the Philippines form a big buffer zone between the U.S. and China. If the U.S. does not want to change its major defense policies it won't give up on these alliances.

Hence, there are no good reasons to be optimistic about Trump's presidency if he goes through with anything he has said.