Why did Donald Trump win in 2016? Was it racism? The stress of the American working class? Could it be both? In this episode, Dennis shares his own working-class roots, how the demise of manufacturing has altered towns across America and how the two major parties ignored the problems of the working class. Dennis believes Donald Trump was a warning to the governing classes to pay attention to the needs of the American worker or get ready for another strongman in the White House.
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Episode Notes:
Workers Are People, Not Widgets: An Epilogue by Amber Lapp
The First White President by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Donald Trump, Class Warrior by Clive Crook
Why They Loved Him by Farah Stockman
Richard Rorty’s 1998 Book Suggested Election 2016 Was Coming by Jennifer Senior
How the American Left Lost Hope by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty
Death of A Salesman by Arthur Miller
Photo credit: Sitdown strikers at the Fisher Body Plant Factory Three in Flint, Michigan. Library of Congress. Public Domain.
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