This last week, during an interview with Republican Vice-Presidential candidate JD Vance, ABC‘s Martha Raddatz tried to dispel concerns about Venezuelan gangs infiltrating Aurora, Colorado by stating that only “a handful of apartment complexes” in the city were affected. Listen more closely, and that benign-sounding dismissal is actually more sinister than it seems. It was, despite her intentions, the news media version of Dorothy pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, revealing how class bias shapes media narratives and overlooks voter concerns.
Raddatz blithely waving away the legitimate concerns of a specific community only reflects how easily the media elite default to downplaying what are vital issues in poorer communities. Vance’s response underscored an even deeper divide—how class bias in public discourse has obscured the realities facing many Americans.
As former staffers on Capitol Hill and now advocacy professionals, we have been observing the phenomenon of narrative-makers—media, lobbyists, think tanks, and other political practitioners—indulging in the stereotypes set by their peers on a subset of lawmakers (stereotypes such as “unreasonable” and “extreme”). Casual observers might see this simply as an exercise between Republican-aligned and Democrat-aligned individuals and organizations. But that is too simplistic to explain the shift occurring in today’s politics.
Last year, we set out to more clearly understand what our instincts were telling us by examining the socioeconomic makeup of the major congressional caucuses, which serve as a reliable bellwether of how different factions within the two parties tend to vote on and influence legislative priorities. We saw that members of congress—white, Black, and Hispanic—from the poorest districts in America were the lawmakers increasingly bucking the traditional power structures that have governed the Capitol. As we detail in our research paper “Class Dismissed,” of all the major caucuses in the House of Representatives, the four with the lowest average median incomes are the conservative Anti-Woke caucus and Freedom Caucus, and the liberal Hispanic Caucus and Congressional Black Caucus. While the partisan affiliation of these caucuses may differ, these members share a distressed constituency and a willingness to agitate the leadership of each party in an effort to wake up to the realities in their communities.
On the other hand, our analysis shows that members with more presumed bipartisan dispositions represent the wealthier communities in Congress. And as we suspected, these members and their caucuses are often viewed by the narrative-makers as more responsible and prudent legislators.
This dichotomy is what we consider class bias, which stems from the fact that the narrative-makers are gated off from the experiences expressed by the members and caucuses in Congress that represent poorer Americans.
While the tactics of some members in the caucuses representing poorer communities might make useful content for a media and political environment that sets out to reaffirm the beliefs of their audiences, it neglects a deeper understanding of why and where these members are coming from.
In a post-COVID world, where white collar workers got ahead and poor communities fell further behind, it is beyond reasonable that these constituencies are looking to their representatives to fight like hell for the interests they believe have been disregarded.
When child poverty rates and measures of health and wealth exceed or even meet national averages, prioritizing norms is a luxury that other Americans living paycheck and paycheck cannot afford.
And in the absence of greater perspective from the narrative-makers to these real-life experiences, the political implications have been undeniable. CNN‘s data reporter, Harry Enten, recently found that Donald Trump is poised for the best performance with Black voters since Richard Nixon and the best performance for a Republican with Hispanics in 14 years. Trump is also positioned to break the blue wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin with support from white, working class voters, driven by high levels of support from union members and households.
Furthermore, a recent NBC News poll shows that while college educated men and women overwhelmingly support Kamala Harris (+8 and +38 respectively), men and women without a college degree support Trump (+28 and + 3 respectively).
The GOP is shifting into the party of a diverse working class, while national Democrats are absorbing the highly educated and wealthier Americans.
This is a realignment that can only be realized through presidential elections, as they offer a more blended electorate than Congress. While the seeds of this shift have been planted in Congress, 435 congressional districts are too diffuse to organize a governing coalition against the current class bias. But when over 250 million Americans face just two choices to lead the country, realignment is possible. And as expressed in current polling, it is keeping Donald Trump competitive in many blue states.
We began this column with a metaphor from the film The Wizard of Oz. But perhaps the alternate origin-story from the musical Wicked more accurately captures the moment we are in, as the audience learns of the difficult upbringing of the wicked Witch of the West at the hands of the portrayed “good witch” of the North. After attempts to fit into the social structure present in her world, the Witch of the West was cast into obscurity. We suggest more people consider similar social dynamics from this fictional story to inform political judgments in today’s electorate.
Sam Geduldig and Ja’Ron Smith are partners at Washington-based lobbying firm, CGCN. Smith is the author of “Underserved: Harnessing the Principles of Lincoln’s Vision for Reconstruction for Today’s Forgotten Communities”.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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