Feelings, nothing more than feelings
By 
Trying to forget my feelings of . . . sorry about that.
Timothy Egan didn’t even have to travel to a Scranton diner to study the white working class in its native habitat:
Among the people I love is a sibling who works at Walmart cleaning toilets at night in a thinly populated part of eastern Oregon. She’s been there more than 25 years and has trouble saving a dime and certainly no path to retirement. She’s likely to vote, again, for President Trump.
No matter how much I point out that Trump is trying to take away her health care protections by litigating to kill Obamacare, that his tariffs have made it harder to pay her bills, that he is the most repulsive and creepy man ever to occupy the White House, she holds firm.
Why? One reason is what she hears from the other side. Many Democrats, she says, are dismissive of her religious beliefs and condescending of her lot in life. She’s turned off by the virtue-signaling know-it-alls.
You will be shocked to learn that this column goes on to provide exactly zero instances of Egan’s sister actually experiencing any of these status injuries, that I suspect she endured by proxy, by watching Fox News et. al., which helpfully informed her that a bunch of Condescending Liberals look down on her.
It’s no mystery why so many Democrats can no longer connect to the white working class. Progressives promise free college, free health care, free child care, and scream in bafflement, What’s wrong with you people?
Well let’s see: the number of non-white working class people who voted for Trump would pretty much fit inside that diner he didn’t have to visit. So what could explain this totally non-mysterious difference between the voting patterns of white and non-white working class voters?
If you said that by far the most plausible explanation under the statistical circumstances is “racism,” boy were you wrong! Put down that avocado toast and learn the shocking truth:
No doubt, some of those people are racist and xenophobic. But many others simply feel insulted and dismissed. And these are voters who can still be persuaded to save our country from a disastrous second term of a corrupt and unstable president.
I would love to have a job where I could spout highly counter-factual “theories” for a living without providing any evidence whatsoever for their validity. Oh wait I’m a law professor. Moving right along:
Barack Obama, still the smartest politician in the land, knows this; a week ago, he rightfully called out the call-out culture that marginalizes so many people who are ready to vote against Trump.
Oh, right: What’s marginalizing your sister is the “call-out culture” and “political correctness,” and probably avocado toast too, not her low-wage, no benefits, no employment security job.
And look, Tim, with all due respect your sister is an idiot, at best. Voting for a man who you yourself note is the most obviously crooked plutocrat of the second gilded age because you’re a temporarily embarrassed billionaire with a serious case of white fragility is contemptible. People like her aren’t gettable by Elizabeth Warren for the same reason I’m not winning the NBA slam dunk contest next spring.