Missing the Working Class

How Kamala proved herself fully worthy of the presidency but talked over the heads of the people who needed her.

• 12 November 2024

After the initial shock of voters proving the polls right and Trump winning again, everyone I trusted expressed continued appreciation and admiration for the campaign Kamala Harris conducted. Despite the loss, everyone promised to defend our democracy and accomplish all the goals they would have more easily attained if she had won the election. Leaders of political organizations said they would continue to organize resistance to Trump’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle the government. “We always knew the battle was bigger than defeating Donald Trump.” “American ideals are bigger than one man.” It was reassuring that everyone who mattered had a plan: organize and resist.

Then overnight, even before the weekend, every consultant, party leader, expert, and journalist began criticizing the Democrats for losing the election. “Kamala Harris was resoundingly rejected.” (Not true.) Praise for the perfect campaign was replaced with what was wrong with Kamala. (Nothing.)

Even Kamala’s choice for VP was suddenly suspect. Shapiro would have captured Pennsylvania, they said, forgetting that when the choice was made, we were in the middle of the slaughter in Gaza that followed the slaughter in Israel. Shapiro was too identified with that conflict. And Americans were divided by it. Before the loss, Tim Walz was praised as the perfect pick, “The Coach,” who was fun and fatherly. He was the perfect support for Kamala in her historically short race to the finish and for all the Americans feeling post-pandemic malaise and deprivation from inflation. But now, Shapiro would have been the better choice. Kamala had shot herself in the foot.

The one consolation I had was that the same level of criticism was landed on Obama after his elections—and he won.

The post mortem

I started this post a few days after the election when my shocked state began to lift. As I write this—days later—the criticism and second-guessing has been going on for over two weeks. Hard to believe that we are still in the same month as the election.¹ I’m just now able to pull my thoughts together enough to understand what happened, and make sentences. People had voted for Trump twice. This time, he had even won the popular vote.² What had Trump done that Kamala failed to do?

Frantic parsing of the voting patterns results in distinctions that have little meaning. They sound so precise and arcane that they must be important. What they produce, however, is a focus on smaller and smaller groups of voters. What could we possibly understand by looking at the votes of Asian Latino men between the ages of 19 and 21 with no high school diploma who are living with their parents in the South and are first-time voters?

That study could certainly fill a 3- to 5-minute slot on cable news, but what could it possibly tell us about why millions of people “would blindly back a venal, mendacious fascist peddling racism, misogyny, xenophobia, ableism, and so forth, while cloaking his anti-labor, anti-earth, pro-corporate agenda behind a veil of white nationalism and authoritarian promises that ‘Trump will fix it’,” as Robin Kelley said in the Boston Review.³ Presidential elections are decided by more than 150 million eligible voters who vote, in addition to the millions of eligible voters who don’t bother.

Working people know trickle-down economics is a lie

In presidential politics, the informed opinion is that the determinative factor in the outcome of the election is the state of the economy on the day of voting. On election day, world economic leaders were proclaiming the strength of the American economy. The Biden administration was denying inflation, which they said no longer existed. The financial markets had been rising steadily for over a year to new highs. Harris and Walz were floating.

But Trump voters knew these benefits did not trickle down in large parts of the country or many employment sectors. The parents sitting in PTA meetings listening to the effects of cuts in aid to schools were left to wonder why the $18 billion in military aid given to another country’s war didn’t go to working people at home fighting daily battles for jobs, food, and medicine.

A consensus has now formed around the conclusion that the Democratic Party lost—again—because it turned its back on working people. Not that it intentionally turned its back, it just missed them. Unions were endorsing Democrats and being praised by Harris and Walz, but unions represent only 11% of workers.⁴ That left 79% of workers unaddressed. What about them?

I loved Kamala’s speeches and seeing her charge across the stage with long strides in power pumps or the tarmac in Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars. She was careful not to strut, but I knew she could. Her custom-fitted suits camouflaged her ethnic breasts without denying she had them. A look that was royal and professional without rejecting femininity. Her speeches were spot-on with everything I wanted to hear. One after another, they were perfect. And her delivery became better and better. It was obvious that she was enjoying campaigning.

Kamala’s demeanor was also a relief from the blandness of Joe Biden, the crassness of Donald Trump, and the often stiffly serious presentations by Hillary Clinton. Kamala also represented a great school and one of the best sororities—Zeta Phi Beta known for compassionate smart women dedicated to action and leadership in social and civic organizations. As elitist as all sororities are, it had proven itself in acceptable ways by supporting and mentoring women for decades and has over 125,000 current members.

But where were the votes?

The more I thought about the campaign and the speeches, I heard myself saying, “You have degrees from excellent schools, including four years of graduate school, then 25 years working in academia, and 60 years of reading and writing policy, criticism, and theory at a reading level far above the general public’s reading level of 6th-7th grades. And you mainline socioeconomic and political news. Who are you to judge what the campaign should have been saying? I was one vote. And not even close to typical.

When I was teaching at the university, I mentored many adult students, 30- and 40-somethings, who had returned to school to finish degrees to qualify for promotions, change careers, or keep their jobs as standards rose. They were all successful, accomplished people who were ambitious and motivated. They also did not read. They could read, but they didn’t have to. They were out of practice because they had learned what they needed to know in college classes years ago or on the job. Reading was a chore, not an automatic skill. And it was only minimally required for their work.

Many were not comfortable walking into a bookstore to buy a book or one that was not on their reading list. One student had sold his successful wedding gown business to focus on a line of expensive silk ties he sold to Japanese clients in a suite in the Plaza Hotel off Central Park in Manhattan. He was in his 50s and always dressed as if he were on his way to the Plaza:

Guests are encouraged to dress for the occasion. Afternoon Tea is a long-celebrated tradition at The Plaza, and we kindly ask that you refrain from wearing shorts, beach attire, men’s sleeveless shirts, men’s open-toed shoes, casual hats, ripped denim and athletic wear while dining. Any guest who does not appear sufficiently well-presented may be refused entry.⁵

For dining in the Palm Court, many people wear formal attire like elegant dresses or suits, and dress shoes or heels.

One day my dressed-for-the-Plaza student asked, “There was a book in Barnes & Noble that was sitting right next to the book I needed for this course. It looked interesting so I bought both of them. Is that okay? They were both in the same section and there was another one I thought I might go back and get if that’s okay.” even when wealthy by normal standards, my students often didn’t feel they had permission to shop in bookstores or visit museums.

Members of an art history study group needed to visit a major museum to write about examples of specific painting styles. After attempting the first visit—they didn’t all make it past the entryway, they came to class asking which museums were the safest. I hesitated, a bit perplexed. Did they mean safe neighborhoods or safe inside the museum? Did they expect the guards to be suspicious of them? What were they afraid of? I was rescued by an older man in the study group, a middle manager. He immediately said, “If you go to the Metropolitan Museum, you can see examples of paintings in all the styles from the central staircase. It goes to all the floors. You won’t get lost.” Even the ability to navigate a museum is learned and heavily class-determined. Kamala Harris was talking and walking over their heads.

The “working class,” “middle class,” and upper class are socioeconomic distinctions that indicate different interests and attitudes. The definitions are based on education level, degree of control over working conditions, authority over others, and wages or salary levels or degree of wealth. Definitions vary widely, and most are useless. People with college degrees are normally considered middle class, but having a college degree does not guarantee that holders will be comfortable with middle- to upper-class environments like museums, bookstores, or fancy food places. Working-class families are likely to socialize only with their family or church members and fellow workers if they live in the same neighborhood. For them to be comfortable with a person with the middle- to upper-class characteristics of a Kamala Harris would require a lot of person-to-person contact in their comfort zones—local workplaces, churches, schools, and neighborhoods.

What class is Donald Trump?

I was beginning to understand why working-class voters were more comfortable with Donald Trump. He is a negative example, but he is solidly working class. However critical he is of other working-class members, however dismissive he is, underneath it all, he is one of them. No matter how much his suits and ties cost, they never look as “rich” on him as Kamala’s do on her. No matter how strongly Mar-a-Lago is associated with the upper class that built it, Donald Trump has brought it down to that of a social club with his ostentatious tastes, obvious and not upper-class. He isn’t a slick white-collar criminal; he is a thug. Thugs are working-class no matter how much money they have. Only a silk-collar criminal might hold their status as upper-middle-class or upper-class when convicted in court.

How did the Harris Campaign miss the working class?

I still wondered if the miss was as bad as the press reported. I decided to look at her campaign literature. It would be less seductive than watching her speeches again. The most accessible example of the campaign’s policies was the Policy Book on Economic Opportunity, published on their website. As soon as I had read the first sentence, I knew I had found the problem.

The words sounded natural when Kamala read them; they were her words. But reading them without the visuals of her personality and considering handing them to my students, they are all wrong. In addition to the sentences being too long and including too many words with academic definitions taken from government publications, the text was unclear on the issue of most concern to working people—wages.

The confusion between the working class and the middle class was obvious. The text assumed that the working class was included in references to unions. Union members are on the high end of the working class or even in the lower middle class. They have privileges other workers don’t have—higher salaries, sick days, vacation days, health benefits, and pensions. And often include annual or three-year employment contracts, not hourly wages.

In reality, only 11% of workers are members of unions. That leaves 89% of the workforce unreferenced. Workers would notice that.

The reading level was far above anything someone on the street would pick up to read on the subway. I decided to copyedit the policy book to lower the reading level and include clear references to the working class. It took a week of intermittent thinking and writing to determine the best way to make it easier to read but retain the message and the phrases that had become familiar and associated with Kamala.

I measured each paragraph using the Flesch Reading Ease score and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level ranking because they are convenient and the ratings are easy to understand.⁶ They are built into Microsoft Word and widely available to anyone with access to a computer. I also referred to the Children’s Writers Word Book⁷ which includes a thesaurus of words suggested by grade level. In the end, I limited myself to the “Introduction” because the copy edit was taking so much time. It was impossible to achieve anything close to the generally accepted standard for newspapers of 6th- to 7th-grade reading level.

Not college-level but graduate-level

The initial score of the Introduction to the policy book was graduate level. One paragraph was grade 20, 8 years beyond a high school degree. The sentence below, for example, is Grade Level 19.5, graduate level, and has a Reading Ease score of 0. 100 is the top score for easy to read. 0 out of 100 is a definite fail.

"We will bring together workers, community leaders, unions, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and great American companies to remove barriers to opportunity."

Inexperienced or out-of-practice readers need shorter sentences because they read more slowly and thus have more difficulty remembering all the points in a long sentence. Stopping to look up a word, skipping it because they don’t know it, or pausing to remember the meaning is distracting. Technical jargon used by scholars and scientists to label fine distinctions will only be understood by other scholars and scientists. They are stopwords for everyone else. Sentences need to be short with words of no more than 3-4 syllables.

Actions are more important to people in distress than praise and promises. The nice words that the middle class finds elevating and respectful will be considered fluff at best and probably as manipulation. The needs of the working class are too omnipresent and tangible to address superficially with marketing prose.

Harris Campaign Policy Book on Economic Opportunity

The text of the “Introduction” below is edited by paragraph. The original text is in bold. My attempt to translate is in italics. The Grade level and the ease of reading scores follow each paragraph. Comments are labeled Notes.

INTRODUCTION

Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are charting a New Way Forward—to a future where everyone has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. They grew up in middle-class families and believe that when the middle class is strong, America is strong. That's why building up the middle class will be a defining goal of their Administration.

Grade 10.3, 57.5

We are creating a New Way Forward — a future where everyone who is just getting by can get ahead. We know that when the workforce is strong, America is strong. That’s why strengthening the workforce will be the highest goal of our Administration.

Grade 7, 70.3

NOTES: To workers, "middle-class" means the affluent college students who sit around in class and get cushy white-collar jobs. If you want the reader to see an image of hard-working Americans, an alternative might be “workers” or "working people." Or even “hard-working Americans.” People with college degrees still work for hourly wages or part-time at reduced rates with no job security. Colleges hire PhDs to teach courses like piece work at minimum wage rates. People with 3 PhDs can work in museums at minimum wage rates considering the number of hours they work. Do working people think in terms of "defining events”? I think that is more typical of institutions. "Most important"? "Highest"?

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They know that prices are still too high for middle-class families, which is why their top economic priorities will be lowering the costs of everyday needs like health care, housing and groceries and cutting taxes for more than 1OO million working and middle-class Americans.

Grade 20.8, 23.7

We know prices are still too high for working Americans. So our top economic priority will be lowering the costs of everyday necessities like health care, housing, and groceries. And cutting taxes for more than 1OO million working people.

Grade 9.4, 50.4

NOTES: "Needs" may evoke feelings of being impoverished or ill or asking for welfare. “Necessities” are necessary. "Class" is in the same category as "Black," "LatinX", etc. It is identity politics and can go for you or against you, depending on the day of the week and the time of day. Removing these references and using “working people” or “workers” might work better.

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Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will create an Opportunity Economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed—from buying a home to starting a business and building wealth. They will bring together workers, community leaders, unions, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and great American companies to remove barriers to opportunity, revitalize communities, create jobs, grow our economy, and propel our industries into the future—in rural areas, small towns, suburbs, and big cities.

Grade 21.4, 11

We will create an Opportunity Economy where everyone can compete and succeed. Where everyone can buy a home, start a business, or build personal wealth. We will bring together workers, community leaders, unions, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and great American companies to remove barriers to opportunity. This alliance will revitalize communities, create jobs, grow our economy, and take our industries into the future. And it will happen in rural areas, small towns, suburbs, and big cities.

Grade 12, 35.5

NOTES: Why not make this a personal statement written in the first person? "We will... " At least the introduction could be in first person as written by Kamala and Tim. This also lowers the grade level score and raises the reading ease number. Working people often live week to week, and “getting ahead” means paying off credit card balances, opening a savings account, or contributing more to a pension. They wouldn't identify that as "wealth." Wealth may be a technical term that applies to everyone but it only has meaning for the upper middle and upper classes who have a running chance at accumulating more than they need. Adding "personal" might bring it down from “dynastic families” to “individual households.” The long strings of things work well when speaking because you can space them out, add emphasis, and build to a climax. In writing, long lists are better formatted in columns.

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In an Opportunity Economy, more Americans can experience the pride of homeownership. Vice President Harris and Governor Walz have a plan to end the housing shortage and lower prices, partnering with the private sector to build 3 million additional homes. As these new homes are built, the Harris-Walz Administration will also give a historic $25,000 in down-payment assistance to help more Americans buy their first home and provide shelter, opportunity, and security for their loved ones.

Grade 16, 25

In an Opportunity Economy, more Americans can buy a home to provide stability for their families. We will end the housing shortage and lower prices by partnering with businesses to build three million affordable homes. We will also offer $25,000 in down-payment aid for first-time home buyers.

Grade 8.7, 56.7

NOTES: "Can experience the pride of homeownership" sounds like marketing fluff. Working-class people probably don't think about "having experiences." "Pride" is also questionable as a benefit. People want security. They also need a chance to build equity to build generational wealth, but they might not realize this in those words. Homeless and under-homed people's needs are at the level of a door with a lock. A dry space with one light so kids can do homework. Heat if possible. "Have a plan" is not convincing. Everyone has a plan. "We will end the housing shortage..." is more vigorous. "Historic" is marketing fluff or Trump talk. Private sector? It's hard to picture a private sector. "Businesses" or "construction companies" are more tangible.

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Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know that small businesses—neighborhood shops, high-tech startups, small manufacturers, and more—are the engines of our economy. As part of their agenda, they have put forward a plan to help small businesses and entrepreneurs innovate and grow, which the Vice President aims to spur the creation of 25 million new business applications. Their plan includes expanding the startup expense tax deduction for new businesses tenfold and taking on the everyday obstacles and red tape that make it harder to grow a small business.

Grade 16, 33.5

We know that small businesses are the engines of our economy. Neighborhood shops. Child and pet services. Technology startups. Small manufacturers, and many more. We will help small businesses by supporting 25 million new business applications. We will raise the startup expense tax deduction from $5,000 to $50,000. We will also reduce the obstacles and red tape that make it harder to grow a small business.

Grade 8.9, 45.9

NOTES: Agendas are only meaningful to people who spend time in meetings. Workers don't often, if ever. "Taking on" is weak. Need something specific for "tenfold." "Spur" is not as vague, but it's marketing fluff.

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They will invest in the competitive advantages that make America the strongest nation on Earth —our workers, innovation, and industry—so that America remains a leader in the industries of the future. They will revitalize American manufacturing, strengthen our industrial base, and invest in cutting-edge technologies. They will create workforce programs that work for all Americans and strengthen the care economy, opening pathways to the middle class for more Americans that don't require a college degree. And they will protect Social Security and Medicare against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and his extreme allies and will strengthen these programs for the long haul so that Americans can count on retiring with dignity and getting the benefits they earned.

Grade 16.8, 27

We will invest in our workers, their innovations, and our industries so America will be a leader far into the future. These competitive advantages have made America the strongest country in the World. We will reenergize American manufacturing. Strengthen our industrial base. Strengthen the growing care economy. And invest in innovative technologies. We will create job training programs that work for all workers. This will open opportunities that don’t require a college degree to more Americans. We will protect Social Security and Medicare against all attacks. And strengthen them so Americans can count on retiring with the benefits they have earned.

Grade 9.4, 44.9

NOTES: Shorter sentences. Don't repeat words unnecessarily. Need a better word than "workforce programs"—perhaps “on the job training"? Try not to sound like the Human Resources office. As a former professor, I would like to see college degrees introduced as something one does to become better educated, not to get a job. So many of the degree requirements for jobs are meaningless. All the student has learned that relates to the actual job skills is to prove the student learned to show up on time, listen, and meet minimum requirements for following instructions.

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It's time to finally turn the page on Trump and chart a New Way Forward—one in which Americans have the opportunity to create a better life and future for themselves and their families. Vice President Harris will be a president for all Americans, a president who unites us around our highest aspirations, and a president who always fights for the American people. As a prosecutor, Attorney General, Senator, and now Vice President of the United States, that has always been her life's work.

Grade 14.5, 40.4

It's time to chart a New Way Forward so Americans can create a better future for themselves and their families. I will be a president for all Americans. A president who unites us around our highest dreams. And a president who always fights for the American people. As a former prosecutor, Attorney General, Senator, and now Vice President of the United States, that has always been my life’s work.

Grade 8.7, 56.7

NOTES: "Finally" suggests a long dreary time and breaks the upbeat tone. Is it wise to mention Trump this way? It sounds like he is a given. He wasn't when this was distributed and Biden was the president. This gives Trump validation. I would refer to something specific that you think he has done or the Right Wing has done to set the country back—if you mention him at all. "Aspirations" sounds pretentious -- People have dreams.

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Was it worth the time?

It was worth my time, certainly, because now I understand why this was considered high-falutin talk with no substance—it’s too hard to read. It should be clear and simple, so someone who rarely reads more than bills, subtitles on television, instructions on a machine, or a small local newspaper could comfortably understand it.

The original average reading level was grade 16.5, the senior year of college. Without doing a complete rewrite, the copyedit reduced this to grade 9.7, the first year of high school. It needs to be simplified by another three grade levels to bring it down to the public’s reading level of 6th to 7th grade. The average ease of reading was raised to 50 from 34, but since perfectly easy to read is 100, a score of 50 is still not approachable for most people.

The original grade level of 16.5 is still 4 grades above the level of A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes written by the physicist Stephen Hawking on theoretical cosmology. It became a bestseller when it was published in 1988. It has been translated into 40 languages and has sold more than 25 million copies.⁸ It would be interesting to see who has actually read it. The example given by the testing company is “academic papers.”

Of course, this doesn’t address the issue of audience. If a candidate wrote their campaign materials at the 6th-grade level, they would be criticized as close to illiterate. A woman, in particular, would be considered qualified to teach in elementary school. How does one convince college-level readers that one is capable of complex thought? This raises the question of how many people in politics read at a college level in the normal course of a day.

Even though I now understand how we missed the boat in an election where the target voters were working Americans, I’m still sad that we missed another opportunity to have an intelligent, compassionate, and committed president with enormous energy who enjoyed being Vice President and planning to be President.

The lesson is to keep working. No one won this election.

Note: The grade level of this blog post is 9.5 with a reading ease of score of 53.6. Blog post finished 30 Nov 2024.

1. A fact pointed out by Shannah Albert who writes Notes from Shannah.

2. That lead diminishes as the counting continues. It is a slim margin but he seems to have won fairly this time.

3. From “Notes on Fighting Trumpism” by Robin D.G. Kelley in the Boston Review. Accessed 20 November 2024.

4. The percentage of workers represented by unions according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2023. This includes 1.8 million workers who are not members but whose jobs are covered by union contracts.

5. From the information for guests posted online for the Plaza for afternoon tea. Accessed 15 November 2024.

6. The formula was developed in the 1940s by Rudolf Flesch. He was a consultant with the Associated Press, developing methods for improving the readability of newspapers. The Flesch Reading Ease is used by marketers, research communicators, policy writers, and many others to help them assess the ease by which a piece of text will be understood and engaged with.

7. The Children’s Writers Word Book by Alijandra Mogilner and Tayopa Mogliner (2nd Edition. Writer’s Digest Books, 2006.)

8. See Wikipedia for an extensive summary of each chapter Of a Brief History of Time written at the 11th-grade level.