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Trevor Ewen's avatar

My politically conservative father has not voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter. This is a message that appeals to him. CEO pay & decreasing living standards in his area (very white, very rural): two things he talks about, constantly.

If the message is racialized, it becomes less salient. To his credit, he is fair-minded enough to acknowledge our history of racial inequity and how it factors into economic outcomes. Still, these conversations are meaningless for his community unless they are tied to economics, because they only have poor people that are white. Southwest Virginia not likely to go progressive any time soon, but I think this should be the mantle of the oft-malpracticed Democratic strategy to win in rural communities.

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Jameel Alsalam's avatar

Some of your points relate to the narrow group of billionaires, while the top quarter probably includes most of your white audience. The slippage in who is "rich" is a big problem in framing solutions about class. I have a feeling the necessary solutions involve redistribution from the top quarter, but in the comments you are telling people they can ignore that point if they don't like it!

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