HBR | Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men,
also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I]
can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot
of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard
for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the
difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct
contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to
become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and
friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu,
where you feel comfortable — just with more money. “The main thing is to
be independent and give your own orders and not have to take them from
anybody else,” a machine operator told Lamont. Owning one’s own business
— that’s the goal. That’s another part of Trump’s appeal.
Hillary Clinton, by contrast, epitomizes the dorky arrogance and
smugness of the professional elite. The dorkiness: the pantsuits. The
arrogance: the email server. The smugness: the basket of deplorables.
Worse, her mere presence rubs it in that even women from her
class can treat working-class men with disrespect. Look at how she
condescends to Trump as unfit to hold the office of the presidency and
dismisses his supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic.
Trump’s blunt talk taps into another blue-collar value: straight
talk. “Directness is a working-class norm,” notes Lubrano. As one
blue-collar guy told him, “If you have a problem with me, come talk to
me. If you have a way you want something done, come talk to me. I don’t
like people who play these two-faced games.” Straight talk is seen as
requiring manly courage, not being “a total wuss and a wimp,” an
electronics technician told Lamont. Of course Trump appeals. Clinton’s
clunky admission that she talks one way in public and another in private? Further proof she’s a two-faced phony.
