Pioneering scholar of working class history & consciousness, David Roediger discusses his most recent book, "The Sinking Middle" w/Bobbi-lee Smart. View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/encuentro5/43-the-sinking-middle-class-wdavid-roediger-saturday-noon-edt?e=98af3434b6> JOIN DAVID ROEDIGER & BOBBI-LEE SMART IN CONVERSATION Saturday, April 3, 2021, 12 noon (EDT) ZOOM <https://shelterandsolidarity.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=ba2a4ade10&e=98af3434b6> & FB-LIVE <https://shelterandsolidarity.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=0ba6138a59&e=98af3434b6> Join co-hosts Rachel Patten and Bobbi-lee Smart in a conversation with David Roediger about his new book, *The Sinking Middle Class* <https://shelterandsolidarity.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=fb432ecefb&e=98af3434b6> .
OR Books: Joe Biden’s current emphasis on the “American middle class” is typical of centrist Democrat strategy. It is used as a cudgel to defend the party against more radical demands that could win over working-class voters and non-voters. For Republicans, it provides a foil for disingenuous appeals to the “white working class.” Donald Trump’s 2016 victory made full use of such rhetoric. Yet, as David Roediger makes clear in a pointed and persuasive polemic, this obsession with the middle-class is relatively new in US politics. It began with the attempt to win back so-called “Reagan Democrats” by Bill Clinton and his legendary pollster Stanley Greenberg. It was accompanied by a pandering to racism and a shying away from meaningful wealth redistribution that continues to this day. Drawing on rich traditions of radical social thought, Roediger disavows the thinly sourced idea that the United States was, for much of its history, a “middle-class” nation and the still more indefensible position that it is one now. The increasing immiseration of large swathes of middle-income America, only accelerated by the current pandemic, nails a fallacy that is a major obstacle to progressive change. *JOIN ON ZOOM* <https://shelterandsolidarity.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=9938e0dee4&e=98af3434b6> *VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR PAST SHOWS* <https://shelterandsolidarity.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=e4bba09664&e=98af3434b6> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7720): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7720 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81824636/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
