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What′s the Matter with White People? Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was
How scapegoat politics is dividing America and bankrupting the middle class
The size and stability of the American middle class was once the envy of the world. But changes unleashed in the 1960s pitted Americans against one another politically in new and destructive ways-while economically, everyone fell behind except the wealthy.
Right-wing culture warriors blamed the decline on the moral shortcomings of "other" Americans-blacks, feminists, gays, immigrants, union members -to court a fearful white working and middle class base with ever more bitter "us" vs. "them" politics. Liberals tried but mostly failed to make the case that we're all in this together. In All for None and None for All, MSNBC political analyst and popular Salon columnist Joan Walsh traces this deeply disturbing dynamic as it has played out over the last forty years, dividing the country, poisoning its politics, jeopardizing its future-and splitting her working class Irish Catholic family as well.
* Connects the dots of American decline through trends that began in the 1970s and continue today-including the demise of unions, the stagnation of middle class wages, the extension of the right's "Southern Strategy" throughout the country, the victory of Reagan Republicanism, the widening partisan divide, the increase in income inequality, and the drop in economic mobility.
* Shows how liberals unwittingly collaborated in the "us" vs. "them" narrative and failed to develop an inspiring, persuasive vision of a more fair, united America
* Explores how the GOP's renewed culture war-one which could conceivably make Rick Santorum president, and produced radical changes in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Virginia-now scapegoats even segments of its base, as it blames the troubles of working class whites on their own moral failings rather than an unfair economy
As the United States becomes a "majority-minority" culture, while the GOP doubles down on racial and cultural appeals to rev up its demographically threatened white base in 2012, Walsh talks about race in honest, unflinching, unfamiliar terms, acknowledging not just Republican but Democratic Party political mistakes-and her own. This book will be essential reading as the country struggles through political polarization and racial change to invent the next America in the years to come.
The size and stability of the American middle class was once the envy of the world. But changes unleashed in the 1960s pitted Americans against one another politically in new and destructive ways-while economically, everyone fell behind except the wealthy.
Right-wing culture warriors blamed the decline on the moral shortcomings of "other" Americans-blacks, feminists, gays, immigrants, union members -to court a fearful white working and middle class base with ever more bitter "us" vs. "them" politics. Liberals tried but mostly failed to make the case that we're all in this together. In All for None and None for All, MSNBC political analyst and popular Salon columnist Joan Walsh traces this deeply disturbing dynamic as it has played out over the last forty years, dividing the country, poisoning its politics, jeopardizing its future-and splitting her working class Irish Catholic family as well.
* Connects the dots of American decline through trends that began in the 1970s and continue today-including the demise of unions, the stagnation of middle class wages, the extension of the right's "Southern Strategy" throughout the country, the victory of Reagan Republicanism, the widening partisan divide, the increase in income inequality, and the drop in economic mobility.
* Shows how liberals unwittingly collaborated in the "us" vs. "them" narrative and failed to develop an inspiring, persuasive vision of a more fair, united America
* Explores how the GOP's renewed culture war-one which could conceivably make Rick Santorum president, and produced radical changes in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Virginia-now scapegoats even segments of its base, as it blames the troubles of working class whites on their own moral failings rather than an unfair economy
As the United States becomes a "majority-minority" culture, while the GOP doubles down on racial and cultural appeals to rev up its demographically threatened white base in 2012, Walsh talks about race in honest, unflinching, unfamiliar terms, acknowledging not just Republican but Democratic Party political mistakes-and her own. This book will be essential reading as the country struggles through political polarization and racial change to invent the next America in the years to come.
278 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
July 6, 2012
Joan Walsh, editor at large for salon.com, writes persuasively about how the Republican Party co-opted the white working class and how the Democrats helped them do it in her new work, but it's a book for true believers. I doubt it will be read by those outside the progressive movement. Further, my guess is that the first part of the title–What's the Matter with White People?–will be a point of attack by those on the other side of the political spectrum. It's a shame...though an imperfect read, Walsh makes some strong points.
An Irish-American who grew up Catholic in a Democratic family filled with the sort of blue collar Democrats that populated urban centers in the East and Mid-West for decades, Walsh bought into her father's romantic view that the Black Irish share an affinity with African Americans because of how the Irish had been mistreated, first by the English, and then in U.S. as immigrants, for centuries. Bias against the Irish in the US was a result of their Catholic faith and heavy drinking, which eventually put them on the wrong side of the abolitionist movement, which also had strong ties to the temperance movement. This isn't news, but it provides a great deal of context, and, along with Ken Burn's Prohibition documentary last year for PBS, helped me put this part of U.S. history in proper perspective.
It is against this backdrop that Walsh moves forward in time, detailing the strong ties between Catholics, the white working class, and the Democratic Party. She discusses the development of unions, the New Deal, and how Nixon's Southern Strategy worked not only in the South, it created a wedge between the white working class and the Democrats in urban America. Republicans and an increasingly active lobbying effort by pro-business forces used unions and race and a dissonant progressive movement to break the long-held ties altogether by the 1970s.
I liked a great deal of the book. Walsh's immediate and extended family histories as well as her work in progressive politics and advocacy journalism make the history personal, and by doing so it becomes more easily understandable and accessible. That said though, by the time she reaches the 2008 primaries and general election, I began to lose interest. Walsh never waivers, but offers no solutions. Perhaps this is her point. After all, the subtitle of her book is “why we long for a golden age that never was.” To offer solutions, then, would lead us to a non-existant promised land, a mirage. Maybe so, but the litany of what went wrong becomes intolerably depressing.
Even more so, though, Walsh's personal connection to her thesis–what actually made the book for the most part more interesting and accessible–shifts the narrative too strongly from history to her story. Her attempt to meld the macro with the micro is not entirely successful. Yes, through her daughter's choices she begins to bridge the gap, but it's simply not enough because of that lack of prescriptive measures. A small ray of sunshine just isn't enough.
What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was remains a book worth reading if for no other reason than the history, context, and perspective it provides. Walsh's attempts to integrate her personal and familial experiences with history as a whole may not work as well as she expected, but it takes the reader part of the way. My recommendation would be to take a breather by the time she reaches 2008 in her analysis, letting what came before fully process before tackling the last sections of the book.
(The digital download of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley.)
An Irish-American who grew up Catholic in a Democratic family filled with the sort of blue collar Democrats that populated urban centers in the East and Mid-West for decades, Walsh bought into her father's romantic view that the Black Irish share an affinity with African Americans because of how the Irish had been mistreated, first by the English, and then in U.S. as immigrants, for centuries. Bias against the Irish in the US was a result of their Catholic faith and heavy drinking, which eventually put them on the wrong side of the abolitionist movement, which also had strong ties to the temperance movement. This isn't news, but it provides a great deal of context, and, along with Ken Burn's Prohibition documentary last year for PBS, helped me put this part of U.S. history in proper perspective.
It is against this backdrop that Walsh moves forward in time, detailing the strong ties between Catholics, the white working class, and the Democratic Party. She discusses the development of unions, the New Deal, and how Nixon's Southern Strategy worked not only in the South, it created a wedge between the white working class and the Democrats in urban America. Republicans and an increasingly active lobbying effort by pro-business forces used unions and race and a dissonant progressive movement to break the long-held ties altogether by the 1970s.
I liked a great deal of the book. Walsh's immediate and extended family histories as well as her work in progressive politics and advocacy journalism make the history personal, and by doing so it becomes more easily understandable and accessible. That said though, by the time she reaches the 2008 primaries and general election, I began to lose interest. Walsh never waivers, but offers no solutions. Perhaps this is her point. After all, the subtitle of her book is “why we long for a golden age that never was.” To offer solutions, then, would lead us to a non-existant promised land, a mirage. Maybe so, but the litany of what went wrong becomes intolerably depressing.
Even more so, though, Walsh's personal connection to her thesis–what actually made the book for the most part more interesting and accessible–shifts the narrative too strongly from history to her story. Her attempt to meld the macro with the micro is not entirely successful. Yes, through her daughter's choices she begins to bridge the gap, but it's simply not enough because of that lack of prescriptive measures. A small ray of sunshine just isn't enough.
What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was remains a book worth reading if for no other reason than the history, context, and perspective it provides. Walsh's attempts to integrate her personal and familial experiences with history as a whole may not work as well as she expected, but it takes the reader part of the way. My recommendation would be to take a breather by the time she reaches 2008 in her analysis, letting what came before fully process before tackling the last sections of the book.
(The digital download of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley.)
October 19, 2020
I loved this book and hated it. Joan Walsh is a brilliant observer on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but the chapters on the past and Irish America are unbelievably stilted and sentimental. And all the talk about the "scary" Sixties rubbed me the wrong way. Something really creepy about a woman who brags that all she ever watched on television in the Sixties was Lawrence Welk. You couldn't lower yourself to watch the Temptations on Ed Sullivan? Who's afraid of what, exactly?
There's something genuinely tragic about Joan Walsh's use of Orwellian "double-think" throughout the book. She can brag about standing up to Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, but she never seems to grasp that she's connected to them by the same system of racial violence and crime that she defends elsewhere in the book. So for example, when confronted by the Draft Riots of 1863, all she can offer are lame, self-pitying cop-outs like "the Abolitionists hated the Irish!"
That's the kind of thing I would expect from Pat Buchanan.
Yet when she's arguing with Chris Matthews, she shows so much courage, and reveals some valuable truths. Evidently they had an argument right after 911 about whether it was "time" to let blacks serve on the New York City Fire Department. And good old Chris Matthews yelled "we've had those jobs for a hundred years!" Yes, exactly. That's what the Irish were fighting for when they burned New York City down in 1863 and hung black women and children from every lamp post. They wanted those city jobs, and they got them. And they've still got them. And Joan Walsh thinks it's wrong. But only up to a point. She can admit Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are racist pigs, but the Irish of yesteryear were victims. They didn't choose to hate the blacks, they were "pitted against them" by "the ruling class."
What a cowardly evasion that is from such a courageous woman!
Culture is a dirty word in this book. But it would do Joan Walsh a lot of good to study the works of Shakespeare. Black people haunt this book the way Banquo's Ghost haunts Macbeth. Macbeth and Banquo were comrades, once, both wading through mud and blood for King Duncan. Just the way the Irish and the blacks shared the same slums before the Civil War! But then Macbeth murders Duncan, and Banquo knows too much, and . . . well, you get the idea.
Joan Walsh is writing sentimental memoir, but the truth is closer to Shakespearean tragedy.
There's something genuinely tragic about Joan Walsh's use of Orwellian "double-think" throughout the book. She can brag about standing up to Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, but she never seems to grasp that she's connected to them by the same system of racial violence and crime that she defends elsewhere in the book. So for example, when confronted by the Draft Riots of 1863, all she can offer are lame, self-pitying cop-outs like "the Abolitionists hated the Irish!"
That's the kind of thing I would expect from Pat Buchanan.
Yet when she's arguing with Chris Matthews, she shows so much courage, and reveals some valuable truths. Evidently they had an argument right after 911 about whether it was "time" to let blacks serve on the New York City Fire Department. And good old Chris Matthews yelled "we've had those jobs for a hundred years!" Yes, exactly. That's what the Irish were fighting for when they burned New York City down in 1863 and hung black women and children from every lamp post. They wanted those city jobs, and they got them. And they've still got them. And Joan Walsh thinks it's wrong. But only up to a point. She can admit Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan are racist pigs, but the Irish of yesteryear were victims. They didn't choose to hate the blacks, they were "pitted against them" by "the ruling class."
What a cowardly evasion that is from such a courageous woman!
Culture is a dirty word in this book. But it would do Joan Walsh a lot of good to study the works of Shakespeare. Black people haunt this book the way Banquo's Ghost haunts Macbeth. Macbeth and Banquo were comrades, once, both wading through mud and blood for King Duncan. Just the way the Irish and the blacks shared the same slums before the Civil War! But then Macbeth murders Duncan, and Banquo knows too much, and . . . well, you get the idea.
Joan Walsh is writing sentimental memoir, but the truth is closer to Shakespearean tragedy.
September 26, 2012
The title of author Joan Walsh's book What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was is a bit misleading. As much memoir and history of Irish immigration to the United States as political polemic, she uses the example of her own working class Irish family to explain why so many from this group have moved to the right, a move which appears to be against their own self-interest.
Surprisingly, given the attitude of most liberals towards the white male working class, Walsh, who is an editor at Salon.com and very much a liberal, gives an extremely empathetic and enlightening explanation of the causes of the rightward shift. She doesn't completely let the white workers off the hook - she points out, for example, that much of their opposition to Affirmative Action programs lies in their desire to be able to keep the better paying union jobs such as police and firefighters for their own kids. However, she blames most of the shift on missed opportunities by the Democratic party and misinformation from the Republicans.
As a working class woman also of Irish descent (albeit Canadian), I found myself nodding frequently at much of what she had to say. She speaks with great love and sympathy for her own Republican relatives. Her story of how she became a liberal Democrat thanks to her father, who was able to live the American Dream only due to being given to the Catholic Brothers when he was thirteen, is both sad and poignant. Her explanation of the sometimes shared, sometimes hostile history between the Irish immigrants and black people of NY is fascinating. Her story of her own journey to understand both her conservative family and her liberal friends and to live within both groups is insightful.
Too often, the white male working class is dismissed as 'racist' or 'stupid white men' by liberals while the Conservatives play into their fears (most unfounded) as they quietly dismantle the institutions, like unions, that actually try to protect the working class. Finally, in Ms Walsh's book, someone is actually speaking out for this much maligned group in an honest and sympathetic manner and, if the Democrats ever want to win them back, they better pay attention.
Surprisingly, given the attitude of most liberals towards the white male working class, Walsh, who is an editor at Salon.com and very much a liberal, gives an extremely empathetic and enlightening explanation of the causes of the rightward shift. She doesn't completely let the white workers off the hook - she points out, for example, that much of their opposition to Affirmative Action programs lies in their desire to be able to keep the better paying union jobs such as police and firefighters for their own kids. However, she blames most of the shift on missed opportunities by the Democratic party and misinformation from the Republicans.
As a working class woman also of Irish descent (albeit Canadian), I found myself nodding frequently at much of what she had to say. She speaks with great love and sympathy for her own Republican relatives. Her story of how she became a liberal Democrat thanks to her father, who was able to live the American Dream only due to being given to the Catholic Brothers when he was thirteen, is both sad and poignant. Her explanation of the sometimes shared, sometimes hostile history between the Irish immigrants and black people of NY is fascinating. Her story of her own journey to understand both her conservative family and her liberal friends and to live within both groups is insightful.
Too often, the white male working class is dismissed as 'racist' or 'stupid white men' by liberals while the Conservatives play into their fears (most unfounded) as they quietly dismantle the institutions, like unions, that actually try to protect the working class. Finally, in Ms Walsh's book, someone is actually speaking out for this much maligned group in an honest and sympathetic manner and, if the Democrats ever want to win them back, they better pay attention.
March 26, 2013
it is not often i give up on a book. i wanted to earlier but since i'd waited so long to get it from the library i toughed it out about 80% of the way.
for some reason i expected the subtitle to be relevant, that it might be about the perception that the 50s were an upstanding, right-thinking time and that "moral decay" is a fuzzy thing to define and hard to defend. that would have been interesting, maybe?
what it's really about isa plea for more class consciousness in lieu of identity politics. she talks a lot about her family's white-ethnic identity and her relationships to people of color (she hates the term, i guess because it unites black physicists with puerto rican peasants, which she rejects as a useful construction, and i'm not sure that i do). there's not much that's new or convincing to me about her argument that the democratic party has been splintered from within by identity politics. this privileges the tragedy of assumed "wins" over democratic process and participation by marginalized people (one of the things i like best about identity politics is *it gets people into politics*). and it assumes some diabolical competence in republican leadership -- was she there for the shitshow that was the 2012 primaries?
it's also filled with detailed apologies and defenses of things she personally wrote or said during the 2008 primaries, which seemed so shockingly far from relevant! i flipped through looking for her Larger Point without finding one.
this is memoir more than argument. if you want to know more about joan walsh specifically, check it out.
for some reason i expected the subtitle to be relevant, that it might be about the perception that the 50s were an upstanding, right-thinking time and that "moral decay" is a fuzzy thing to define and hard to defend. that would have been interesting, maybe?
what it's really about isa plea for more class consciousness in lieu of identity politics. she talks a lot about her family's white-ethnic identity and her relationships to people of color (she hates the term, i guess because it unites black physicists with puerto rican peasants, which she rejects as a useful construction, and i'm not sure that i do). there's not much that's new or convincing to me about her argument that the democratic party has been splintered from within by identity politics. this privileges the tragedy of assumed "wins" over democratic process and participation by marginalized people (one of the things i like best about identity politics is *it gets people into politics*). and it assumes some diabolical competence in republican leadership -- was she there for the shitshow that was the 2012 primaries?
it's also filled with detailed apologies and defenses of things she personally wrote or said during the 2008 primaries, which seemed so shockingly far from relevant! i flipped through looking for her Larger Point without finding one.
this is memoir more than argument. if you want to know more about joan walsh specifically, check it out.
June 24, 2023
I had never heard of Joan Walsh before a week ago, when I saw her on some talking head cable show. Something about what she was saying struck me, so I looked her up and was intrigued by the description of this book. Walsh is not normally the kind of writer who would interest me, but the description of the book struck a chord, so I grabbed it from the library and had at it.
What's the Matter with White People? is one of the best books about politics I've ever read. Now, understand, the author is talking directly at me: her book is about working class Irish Catholics in the Northeast (for the most part), and about how they have peeled away from the Democratic party over the last several decades. The author's description of her family was eerily close to what my family looks like, and her insights about how so many of my friends and relatives became defacto Republicans was spot-on.
Ms. Walsh writes about the Irish, and their treatment in America during earlier centuries. She echoes much of what other writers have said on this topic, mainly that African Americans and the poor Irish had a great deal in common, but they were played off against each other so that the Irish became 'white' and blacks remained second class citizens. During the Great Depression, and during the decades of the New Deal coalition, African Americans and Irish Catholics made common cause by joining the Democrats and pursuing mutual aims related to economic equality. While there was never perfect parity between the two groups--the Irish were not chattel slaves, nor did they face the indignities and dangers of Jim Crow and segregation--there was much the two groups had in common. All of this was interesting.
What utterly fascinated me, though, was the author's analysis of what broke the New Deal coalition in the late sixties and early seventies. I had sort of come to this conclusion on my own, but it was very clarifying to see all of the evidence laid out in front of me. Essentially, the New Left and the cultural/social chaos of the last sixties and early seventies drove a wedge between them and blue collar, working class Catholic Democrats. The New Left abandoned labor, and many of Roosevelt's economic goals, for cultural issues related to what's called (correctly, in my opinion) 'identity politics'). Don't get me wrong: gay people, minorities, the handicapped, Native Americans, women...they all needed to be brought to the table of power in this country, and it was the Democratic Party that did that. But the tension, the shock of it all, created a divide between the cultural/social left and the economic left that remains in place to this day. Richard Nixon, no fool, saw this gap and moved right in, peeling off those who became 'Reagan Democrats' and removing them, for almost forty years, from the Democratic Party. (Tom Frank's mostly excellent book What's the Matter with Kansas? goes into this phenomena in great detail, but he was unable to draw the conclusions about why that Ms. Walsh did).
From the book, pg. 101: "In short, prosperity undermined the New Deal coalition, giving white workers the freedom to believe their enemy was black protesters and white hippies, while providing the New Left with the dream it could create a progressive majority collation without big labor. The two groups suddenly had the luxury of hating each other, of focusing on their cultural differences, because their economic battles seemed to have been won."
Think about what that says: because of the prosperity created by the New Deal, both factions of the Democratic Party forgot that prosperity was created, not a gift from on high. Why join together to fight for economic issues when the economy is growing by 5% per year and unemployment is nearly nonexistent? Instead of focusing on economic fairness, everyone stood in a circular firing squad and blasted away at each other over abortion, feminism, and the environment.
One of the things I liked about this book was the author's refusal to let the New Left off of the hook. She, like me, is Irish. There is a clan loyalty that we feel toward our people, despite their many warts and wrinkles, so for a big time lefty like Ms Walsh to recognize the mote in the eyes of the Progressives was very, very refreshing to me. "It had come to seem to me that the left is never happier than when it can sneer at white working-class people. I mean, who do we think died in those building [on 9/11], Alice Walker and the Dalai Lama?" The answer, of course, is working class Irish and Italian cops and fire fighters. The very people Sarah Palin connected with by waving flags around and talking about the 'real America.' My people.
With all of that said, Ms. Walsh does not mince words when it comes to the racism, prejudice, and intolerance many of those working class white Catholics express when it comes to racial, ethnic, and other minorities. I have seen this, too, many, many times, and I have found it an inescapable conclusion that a significant portion of the resistance to President Obama is based in race. While I applauded the author's defense of our families and our 'people,' (for lack of a better word), I acknowledge that there are real, deep, and persistent issues related to race, gender, and sexual orientation.
By 2040, 'minorities' will outnumber white people in America. That's just how it is. Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are making up an increasingly large part of the Democratic Party, and--as a group--believe that government (the federal government in particular) should be doing more to make the lives of citizens better. Generally speaking, the white working class disagrees, and will continue to vote against their own economic interests because of the deep cultural divide that exists between the Progressive Left and the old Roosevelt/Truman/Kennedy Left. It is deeply unfortunate that these two portions of our country can't recognize that what they have in common is much more important than what divides them. Were some Democrat to come along and recognize the power of economic populism and tolerance joined together, I think you would see the GOP relegated to a regional power--an inevitability, unless they, too change--much more quickly.
Long review, but one final thing: I have wondered, for years, why I have such difficulty voting for Democrats. Generally speaking, I agree with many of their positions, and generally speaking, I like a lot of what they stand for. Reading this book put much of what I struggle with in context for me. Despite the fact that I listen to NPR, have tried yoga, watch Downton Abbey, eat organic food, and have strong opinions about the environment, my people--my clan--are the working class Irish and Italian Catholics of America. People who serve in the military, drive buses, climb electrical poles, fix furnaces, and work in hospitals, schools, fire houses, and police stations. For all of their failings and weaknesses, in the end, I am on their side, and they are on mine. Being in a political coalition with the likes of Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell is very, very difficult for me. I don't have much in common with Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn.org. I don't like Occupy Wall Street. But at the same time...the most cursory glance at our nation's middle (and lower)classes lead me to conclude that the prosperity the New Left and Labor Left took for granted fifty years ago is gone. Now, the Age of Reagan is coming to an end. Perhaps something new will be born that re-unites our two bickering, feuding tribes again.
As Bruce Springsteen said, "The country that we carry in our hearts is waiting." I hope that's true.
What's the Matter with White People? is one of the best books about politics I've ever read. Now, understand, the author is talking directly at me: her book is about working class Irish Catholics in the Northeast (for the most part), and about how they have peeled away from the Democratic party over the last several decades. The author's description of her family was eerily close to what my family looks like, and her insights about how so many of my friends and relatives became defacto Republicans was spot-on.
Ms. Walsh writes about the Irish, and their treatment in America during earlier centuries. She echoes much of what other writers have said on this topic, mainly that African Americans and the poor Irish had a great deal in common, but they were played off against each other so that the Irish became 'white' and blacks remained second class citizens. During the Great Depression, and during the decades of the New Deal coalition, African Americans and Irish Catholics made common cause by joining the Democrats and pursuing mutual aims related to economic equality. While there was never perfect parity between the two groups--the Irish were not chattel slaves, nor did they face the indignities and dangers of Jim Crow and segregation--there was much the two groups had in common. All of this was interesting.
What utterly fascinated me, though, was the author's analysis of what broke the New Deal coalition in the late sixties and early seventies. I had sort of come to this conclusion on my own, but it was very clarifying to see all of the evidence laid out in front of me. Essentially, the New Left and the cultural/social chaos of the last sixties and early seventies drove a wedge between them and blue collar, working class Catholic Democrats. The New Left abandoned labor, and many of Roosevelt's economic goals, for cultural issues related to what's called (correctly, in my opinion) 'identity politics'). Don't get me wrong: gay people, minorities, the handicapped, Native Americans, women...they all needed to be brought to the table of power in this country, and it was the Democratic Party that did that. But the tension, the shock of it all, created a divide between the cultural/social left and the economic left that remains in place to this day. Richard Nixon, no fool, saw this gap and moved right in, peeling off those who became 'Reagan Democrats' and removing them, for almost forty years, from the Democratic Party. (Tom Frank's mostly excellent book What's the Matter with Kansas? goes into this phenomena in great detail, but he was unable to draw the conclusions about why that Ms. Walsh did).
From the book, pg. 101: "In short, prosperity undermined the New Deal coalition, giving white workers the freedom to believe their enemy was black protesters and white hippies, while providing the New Left with the dream it could create a progressive majority collation without big labor. The two groups suddenly had the luxury of hating each other, of focusing on their cultural differences, because their economic battles seemed to have been won."
Think about what that says: because of the prosperity created by the New Deal, both factions of the Democratic Party forgot that prosperity was created, not a gift from on high. Why join together to fight for economic issues when the economy is growing by 5% per year and unemployment is nearly nonexistent? Instead of focusing on economic fairness, everyone stood in a circular firing squad and blasted away at each other over abortion, feminism, and the environment.
One of the things I liked about this book was the author's refusal to let the New Left off of the hook. She, like me, is Irish. There is a clan loyalty that we feel toward our people, despite their many warts and wrinkles, so for a big time lefty like Ms Walsh to recognize the mote in the eyes of the Progressives was very, very refreshing to me. "It had come to seem to me that the left is never happier than when it can sneer at white working-class people. I mean, who do we think died in those building [on 9/11], Alice Walker and the Dalai Lama?" The answer, of course, is working class Irish and Italian cops and fire fighters. The very people Sarah Palin connected with by waving flags around and talking about the 'real America.' My people.
With all of that said, Ms. Walsh does not mince words when it comes to the racism, prejudice, and intolerance many of those working class white Catholics express when it comes to racial, ethnic, and other minorities. I have seen this, too, many, many times, and I have found it an inescapable conclusion that a significant portion of the resistance to President Obama is based in race. While I applauded the author's defense of our families and our 'people,' (for lack of a better word), I acknowledge that there are real, deep, and persistent issues related to race, gender, and sexual orientation.
By 2040, 'minorities' will outnumber white people in America. That's just how it is. Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are making up an increasingly large part of the Democratic Party, and--as a group--believe that government (the federal government in particular) should be doing more to make the lives of citizens better. Generally speaking, the white working class disagrees, and will continue to vote against their own economic interests because of the deep cultural divide that exists between the Progressive Left and the old Roosevelt/Truman/Kennedy Left. It is deeply unfortunate that these two portions of our country can't recognize that what they have in common is much more important than what divides them. Were some Democrat to come along and recognize the power of economic populism and tolerance joined together, I think you would see the GOP relegated to a regional power--an inevitability, unless they, too change--much more quickly.
Long review, but one final thing: I have wondered, for years, why I have such difficulty voting for Democrats. Generally speaking, I agree with many of their positions, and generally speaking, I like a lot of what they stand for. Reading this book put much of what I struggle with in context for me. Despite the fact that I listen to NPR, have tried yoga, watch Downton Abbey, eat organic food, and have strong opinions about the environment, my people--my clan--are the working class Irish and Italian Catholics of America. People who serve in the military, drive buses, climb electrical poles, fix furnaces, and work in hospitals, schools, fire houses, and police stations. For all of their failings and weaknesses, in the end, I am on their side, and they are on mine. Being in a political coalition with the likes of Al Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell is very, very difficult for me. I don't have much in common with Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn.org. I don't like Occupy Wall Street. But at the same time...the most cursory glance at our nation's middle (and lower)classes lead me to conclude that the prosperity the New Left and Labor Left took for granted fifty years ago is gone. Now, the Age of Reagan is coming to an end. Perhaps something new will be born that re-unites our two bickering, feuding tribes again.
As Bruce Springsteen said, "The country that we carry in our hearts is waiting." I hope that's true.
December 18, 2012
2.5 stars
Walsh has some interesting arguments, and she's certainly right that the Democratic Party has had little interest in representing the poor (of any color).
Unfortunately, I got bogged down in her poor white=white Irish Catholic outlook. I understand that's her family history. But it's also a pretty East Coast point of view. As a West Coaster I can say we don't have a large Irish Catholic population (which isn't to say we don't have a lot of poor working class white people or that we don't have our own set of prejudices). But it's hard to relate to her stories of ethnic insularity in certain occupations (again, not to say we don't have that here). It's just a completely different experience and for a book titled as broadly as hers is, I think she really needed to include perspectives from other white blue collar workers as well.
In addition, I take issue with some of her complaints about Identity politics. More than once she dismisses people who argue about what should be in history books as focusing on the wrong thing, but is then astonished when Progressive friends don't know the history of Irish Catholic Americans and labor disputes. How does she think those stories get included? And isn't it important to know a people's history so we all appreciate how difficult it was to make some of the gains that have been made? I don't deny that identity politics have plenty of problems of their own, but sometimes it's the best way to get something done. Does anyone really think gay marriage would be legalized in any state if gay groups hadn't been working toward it for years (sometimes with the help of their straight allies)?
I think my problem is that I was looking for more of an academic work and less of a personal history.
Walsh has some interesting arguments, and she's certainly right that the Democratic Party has had little interest in representing the poor (of any color).
Unfortunately, I got bogged down in her poor white=white Irish Catholic outlook. I understand that's her family history. But it's also a pretty East Coast point of view. As a West Coaster I can say we don't have a large Irish Catholic population (which isn't to say we don't have a lot of poor working class white people or that we don't have our own set of prejudices). But it's hard to relate to her stories of ethnic insularity in certain occupations (again, not to say we don't have that here). It's just a completely different experience and for a book titled as broadly as hers is, I think she really needed to include perspectives from other white blue collar workers as well.
In addition, I take issue with some of her complaints about Identity politics. More than once she dismisses people who argue about what should be in history books as focusing on the wrong thing, but is then astonished when Progressive friends don't know the history of Irish Catholic Americans and labor disputes. How does she think those stories get included? And isn't it important to know a people's history so we all appreciate how difficult it was to make some of the gains that have been made? I don't deny that identity politics have plenty of problems of their own, but sometimes it's the best way to get something done. Does anyone really think gay marriage would be legalized in any state if gay groups hadn't been working toward it for years (sometimes with the help of their straight allies)?
I think my problem is that I was looking for more of an academic work and less of a personal history.
Currently reading
October 10, 2012I just started this; I'm hoping she'll address one of my biggest pet peeves, the "nowadays syndrome." Listen and you'll hear everyone from political pundits to less-than newsworthy celebrates bemoaning how much things have changed and for the worse. Because "nowadays," things are just worse than they used to be. Things aren't worse, they're just different (arguably). Yesteryear wasn't that great, tomorrow won't probably be that bad and maybe we could all just look at what's in front of us today and simply be grateful for that.
October 20, 2016
I watch Joan Walsh all the time when she is on MSNBC. She seems to be a lovely caring understanding, knowledgeable and intelligent lady. I won't go into detail about her book because I think all people of all race's and religions should read this book. Ms. Walsh goes into great detail and understands both sides of the race issues in America!! I want to understand what's on the minds of White People and how better I can understand them. This country has got to get pass the hate and misunderstandings. I think this book helps with that!!
May 16, 2019
Unfortunately, the book I was hoping for was not this one.
Some good reviews that encompass the issues with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I recommend Dying of Whiteness instead. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Some good reviews that encompass the issues with this book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I recommend Dying of Whiteness instead. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
December 30, 2022
This is a very good read. It tells the story of the author's family through the 20th century and the political climate that was occurring at the time. Walsh, who is white, tells a story that is probably very common in many white working class families.
So what is the matter with white people? Apparently, it is other white people. Specifically, Republican white people; mostly men, but some women too. Republican white people in congress who want to keep their power and gather as much wealth for themselves and their rich white political donors.
How have they been doing this? By pitting the low income to middle class population against themselves based on race. The GOP has been telling the white working people that "others" are taking their jobs, are getting entitlements that they aren't and just being "uppity" by wanting decent housing, decent jobs, and opportunities to succeed and thrive. Who are the others? According to Republicans, anyone who isn't white and even some white people who know that what "others" get from the government, they also get too.
Now the GOP has added the idea that if whites become a minority in the US, they become second class citizens. This has stoked extreme hatred for non-whites and reforms that hurt not only people of color, but white people too! If Medicare and social security ends for millions of non-white seniors, guess what? White grandma's don't get theirs either.
Time for white working people to realize that the GOP is more than willing to screw them all over so white, rich men (an extremely small part of the US population) can stay in power.
It is also time for white working people to realize that America was never a white only country. In fact, non-whites were here first and are not going away. It is way past time for all working class people to band together and fight the "man." If not, we all , even white people, will suffer so that rich Republicans can have more power and even more of our money.
So what is the matter with white people? Apparently, it is other white people. Specifically, Republican white people; mostly men, but some women too. Republican white people in congress who want to keep their power and gather as much wealth for themselves and their rich white political donors.
How have they been doing this? By pitting the low income to middle class population against themselves based on race. The GOP has been telling the white working people that "others" are taking their jobs, are getting entitlements that they aren't and just being "uppity" by wanting decent housing, decent jobs, and opportunities to succeed and thrive. Who are the others? According to Republicans, anyone who isn't white and even some white people who know that what "others" get from the government, they also get too.
Now the GOP has added the idea that if whites become a minority in the US, they become second class citizens. This has stoked extreme hatred for non-whites and reforms that hurt not only people of color, but white people too! If Medicare and social security ends for millions of non-white seniors, guess what? White grandma's don't get theirs either.
Time for white working people to realize that the GOP is more than willing to screw them all over so white, rich men (an extremely small part of the US population) can stay in power.
It is also time for white working people to realize that America was never a white only country. In fact, non-whites were here first and are not going away. It is way past time for all working class people to band together and fight the "man." If not, we all , even white people, will suffer so that rich Republicans can have more power and even more of our money.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 18, 2022
The author is spot-on, I think, with her assessment of the situation of the white working class as a group that has developed deep feelings of being “left behind” as other groups have received more attention from media and government programs. Written in 2012, the book seems quaintly dated… as we have already forgotten Occupy Wall Street, the Obama presidency, and the old New Deal/Great Society coalition of working class whites, minorities, and liberal elites. Ten years down the road… the divisions seem greater and the class alienation deeper. Can’t we all just get along?
May 27, 2016
This book is an easy and great read, but because it's so jam-packed with information, it's kind of difficult to review. You just don't want to leave anything out. So, one has to settle to give the reader a taste. (The book contains a very useful index, also.) Being that this book makes so many good points that it's hard to convey the overall direction of it as a whole. It covers racism and class, mostly. It shows how we, the NOT 1-percent, are screwed BY the 1-percent, and how "we" have screwed ourselves out of ignorance, as well. Frank Zappa said that the most abundant substance in the universe is stupidity. This book's content, further proves Zappa's observation to be true, unfortunately. These types of books inspire a belief in improving life for all humanity. But they also, most likely inadvertently, remind us of just how pathetic the human species is.
Read the rest of the review on my blog, and don't forget to listen to my relaxing, dulcet compositions as you read!
Read the rest of the review on my blog, and don't forget to listen to my relaxing, dulcet compositions as you read!
December 7, 2012
Joan Walsh, who I much admire as a regular MSNBC contributor, explains the complicated interplay between race and politics that has brewed and often boiled over in the US over the last 40 years (and in truth, much longer than that). In itself, that would make a compelling read but not a standout among a number of recent political books. But Ms. Walsh also tells the story from her personal viewpoint, which in itself encompasses a number of viewpoints - product of a blue collar Irish Catholic family from New York, Wisconsin college activitist, San Francisco progressive working with poor minorities, single parent with Jewish ex-husband balancing career and family, liberal editor and demon of the right. All of this helps to show that race, class, and politics is not as black and white as the talking heads want you to believe.
February 8, 2013
I decided to read to read the book because normally I'd dismiss the complaints of White working class republicans. I felt that maybe there was something to their grievances and I should consider being more open-minded.
I'm very happy that I read What's the Matter.
Chock full of stats, historical references, and personal anecdotes, What's the Matter helped so much in explaining why Reagan democrats feel abandoned by the democratic party. They are a forgotten demographic that could definitely help more in strengthening the democratic party.
I think this should be a must-read for every democrats pursuing public office.
I'm very happy that I read What's the Matter.
Chock full of stats, historical references, and personal anecdotes, What's the Matter helped so much in explaining why Reagan democrats feel abandoned by the democratic party. They are a forgotten demographic that could definitely help more in strengthening the democratic party.
I think this should be a must-read for every democrats pursuing public office.
December 8, 2021
I rated this book 3-stars, but barely. I read it, and six months later I saw it on the library shelf and picked it up again, not realizing I had already read it. That's how big an impression it made on me. As I re-read it, I realized I had already read it, so I skimmed through the rest and re-freshed myself on it. The author's interpretation of what caused the break-up of liberalism was nothing particularly new or unique - interesting, with a mild twist here and there. And it was part family memoir, which just isn't my style. If you like that, you might like the book better than I did.
March 4, 2013
Politics is such a game! Life seems like a game as well. The current players of the game of life are the people we have elected. Unfortunately, we may not necessarily elect the candidate that will serve "all", as if that is possible. Money is the winner. Money buys power and power controls the money. That leaves most of Americans out of the game. Is there an answer?
October 8, 2019
I enjoyed it much of the time but the whiny tone got to me after a while. The part about how it was growing up was the best. I don't think it was necessary to go through every moment of the last thirty years in politics. It started to get repetitive. Maybe ultimately, the premise was not quite enough to carry a whole book; it would have been a good essay.
April 5, 2013
I enjoyed her personal insight when relating her individual story. The political commentary was sometimes spot on, other times a little too political. She obviously learned much from her dad and the whole indentured Irish tale was alone worth the read.
October 5, 2012
This is a very useful book to help remind us of how the Dems began to fight among themselves during the Reagan era, and how we have to stop this if we intend to go forward as the party of "forward".
November 25, 2016
NOTES:
Democrats do best when they can unite around a vision of economic improvement for everybody; they get derailed when Republicans toss culture war grenades or play on race.
2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, released 2011 tax returns showing while he made $21 million off investments, he only paid 13.9 percent tax rate - a lower rate than middle-class workers.
“What’s the matter with white people?” I found myself asking – in a different way – as in, “Aren’t we part of your multiracial future, too?”
Lefty scorn for the working class helped push it right. It will be hard to restore America’s economic potential without the support of the white middle and working class.
I was raised to understand that gov’t helped my family rise, that the nation, led by Democrats, made political decisions to spread prosperity and build the middle class.
Too many white people think they didn’t have help, that they did everything on their own. Then, predictably, they reject the idea that they got something African Americans and Latinos didn’t get.
The GOP continues to make white voters believe Democrats are the party of big government – a corrupt big government that doesn’t work for white people, only for undeserving minorities.
I don’t know why it was so hard for so many of my people to see that blacks and Puerto Ricans were playing the role the Irish had before them, filling in the bottom rungs of society, as the white working class climbed.
If my father made me a feminist, by pouring his stunted ambition into me and encouraging my every intellectual pursuit, my mother made me a guilty feminist, because I knew from an early age I didn’t want a life like hers.
My father cracked the walls of our religious ghetto by telling me all good people go to heaven, whatever their religion; heaven was not a country club, he said.
My father pointed to the Serenity Prayer, though he made clear that “accepting the things I cannot change” wasn’t an option when it came to social injustice.
“The working-class white man feels trapped and, even worse, ignored... He is beginning to look for someone to blame. That someone is almost certainly going to be the black man.” –Pete Hamill, New York magazine, April 1969
I believed and still believe that even a weak Democrat is better for the country than a Republican. That’s what my father taught me.
Reagan’s tax cuts did the most damage when it comes to dismantling the machinery of upward mobility. He slashed the top rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, and income inequality has soared ever since.
Unionized jobs for people with a high school diploma or less were disappearing. Wages had flattened for all but the highest earners. Families made do by sending a second earner into the workforce.Now they had begun the process of borrowing the money they would have been earning, had wages continued to rise. That rising household debt, encouraged by the way government kept interest rates low and bank regulations flimsy, would culminate in the financial sector meltdown of 2008.
Clinton tilted the balance of power at least a little bit back toward the besieged middle and working classes. He determined to use government to make people’s lives better – if he could do it in stealthy ways, people wouldn’t recognize it as a Big Government move.
I came to hate the term white privilege, even as I believed it still existed, as colorless and odorless (to white people) as oxygen. White privilege was embedded in that superstructure of government help that white families got to rise that African American families didn’t get. It’s the assumption that your experience is the norm, your culture the dominant one.
Clinton left Bush a $236 billion budget surplus; Bush would leave his successor saddled with a $1.2 trillion deficit.
Most working- and middle-class whites “worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.” But the anger of both blacks and whites is “counterproductive,” Obama argued, distracting attention “from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze”: corporate “greed” and “economic policies that favor the few over the many.”
“To wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns,” Obama argued, “this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.”
Sometimes I tried to write off the madness of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party as mere right-wing ranting, therapeutic identity politics for aging white people. Yet there was something more disturbing going on. At the same time that the Tea Party emerged, to “take our country back” from a president they insisted was illegitimate, several high-profile murders by right-wing crazies made it feel as if the increasingly extreme political rhetoric might be driving the unhinged to violence.
Gabby Giffords complained about the violence in an interview, telling MSNBC that she’d been targeted for Sarah Palin’s target list. Nine months later, Giffords was struggling to survive an assassination attempt, the first against a member of Congress since 1954. An unemployed community college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, shot eighteen people and killed six, including a nine-year-old girl, at one of Giffords’s “Congress on your Corner” gatherings.
Most of corporate America had recovered. The average CEO got a 23 percent raise in 2010. Corporate profits had climbed 22 percent since 2007. Yet those profits represented 88 percent of economic growth since the recession had ended; wages and salaries accounted for 1 percent. That was the lowest share of growth going to employee income in an any recovery during the past thirty years.
Obama sided with the wealthy right after the election, when he agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which were set to expire at the end of the year, breaking a campaign promise. In his defense, Obama didn’t have the votes at that point to repeal the high-end tax cuts– in exchange for his “compromise,” he got extended unemployment insurance that helped some of the jobless and a payroll-tax cut that juiced the economy a little.
Yet once Republicans realized that even in the whitest states, same-day voter laws and other easy ballot-access regulations empower citizens who are today more likely to vote for Democrats – students, young people, the lower-income of every race, and yes, the nonwhites – they’ve fought these voter laws ruthlessly.
About 52 percent of white voters call themselves Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, as opposed to 8 percent of blacks and 22 percent of Latinos. In 2012 New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait observed that white voters were all that stood between the Republican Party and “demographic extinction.”
The United States lags behind all industrialized nations when it comes to direct government funding of health care, family leave, child care, and unemployment benefits.
Some in the white working class are finally, belatedly, waking up to the issue of economic inequality and the fact that they’ve been sold out by the GOP.
Democrats do best when they can unite around a vision of economic improvement for everybody; they get derailed when Republicans toss culture war grenades or play on race.
2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, released 2011 tax returns showing while he made $21 million off investments, he only paid 13.9 percent tax rate - a lower rate than middle-class workers.
“What’s the matter with white people?” I found myself asking – in a different way – as in, “Aren’t we part of your multiracial future, too?”
Lefty scorn for the working class helped push it right. It will be hard to restore America’s economic potential without the support of the white middle and working class.
I was raised to understand that gov’t helped my family rise, that the nation, led by Democrats, made political decisions to spread prosperity and build the middle class.
Too many white people think they didn’t have help, that they did everything on their own. Then, predictably, they reject the idea that they got something African Americans and Latinos didn’t get.
The GOP continues to make white voters believe Democrats are the party of big government – a corrupt big government that doesn’t work for white people, only for undeserving minorities.
I don’t know why it was so hard for so many of my people to see that blacks and Puerto Ricans were playing the role the Irish had before them, filling in the bottom rungs of society, as the white working class climbed.
If my father made me a feminist, by pouring his stunted ambition into me and encouraging my every intellectual pursuit, my mother made me a guilty feminist, because I knew from an early age I didn’t want a life like hers.
My father cracked the walls of our religious ghetto by telling me all good people go to heaven, whatever their religion; heaven was not a country club, he said.
My father pointed to the Serenity Prayer, though he made clear that “accepting the things I cannot change” wasn’t an option when it came to social injustice.
“The working-class white man feels trapped and, even worse, ignored... He is beginning to look for someone to blame. That someone is almost certainly going to be the black man.” –Pete Hamill, New York magazine, April 1969
I believed and still believe that even a weak Democrat is better for the country than a Republican. That’s what my father taught me.
Reagan’s tax cuts did the most damage when it comes to dismantling the machinery of upward mobility. He slashed the top rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, and income inequality has soared ever since.
Unionized jobs for people with a high school diploma or less were disappearing. Wages had flattened for all but the highest earners. Families made do by sending a second earner into the workforce.Now they had begun the process of borrowing the money they would have been earning, had wages continued to rise. That rising household debt, encouraged by the way government kept interest rates low and bank regulations flimsy, would culminate in the financial sector meltdown of 2008.
Clinton tilted the balance of power at least a little bit back toward the besieged middle and working classes. He determined to use government to make people’s lives better – if he could do it in stealthy ways, people wouldn’t recognize it as a Big Government move.
I came to hate the term white privilege, even as I believed it still existed, as colorless and odorless (to white people) as oxygen. White privilege was embedded in that superstructure of government help that white families got to rise that African American families didn’t get. It’s the assumption that your experience is the norm, your culture the dominant one.
Clinton left Bush a $236 billion budget surplus; Bush would leave his successor saddled with a $1.2 trillion deficit.
Most working- and middle-class whites “worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.” But the anger of both blacks and whites is “counterproductive,” Obama argued, distracting attention “from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze”: corporate “greed” and “economic policies that favor the few over the many.”
“To wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns,” Obama argued, “this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.”
Sometimes I tried to write off the madness of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party as mere right-wing ranting, therapeutic identity politics for aging white people. Yet there was something more disturbing going on. At the same time that the Tea Party emerged, to “take our country back” from a president they insisted was illegitimate, several high-profile murders by right-wing crazies made it feel as if the increasingly extreme political rhetoric might be driving the unhinged to violence.
Gabby Giffords complained about the violence in an interview, telling MSNBC that she’d been targeted for Sarah Palin’s target list. Nine months later, Giffords was struggling to survive an assassination attempt, the first against a member of Congress since 1954. An unemployed community college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, shot eighteen people and killed six, including a nine-year-old girl, at one of Giffords’s “Congress on your Corner” gatherings.
Most of corporate America had recovered. The average CEO got a 23 percent raise in 2010. Corporate profits had climbed 22 percent since 2007. Yet those profits represented 88 percent of economic growth since the recession had ended; wages and salaries accounted for 1 percent. That was the lowest share of growth going to employee income in an any recovery during the past thirty years.
Obama sided with the wealthy right after the election, when he agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which were set to expire at the end of the year, breaking a campaign promise. In his defense, Obama didn’t have the votes at that point to repeal the high-end tax cuts– in exchange for his “compromise,” he got extended unemployment insurance that helped some of the jobless and a payroll-tax cut that juiced the economy a little.
Yet once Republicans realized that even in the whitest states, same-day voter laws and other easy ballot-access regulations empower citizens who are today more likely to vote for Democrats – students, young people, the lower-income of every race, and yes, the nonwhites – they’ve fought these voter laws ruthlessly.
About 52 percent of white voters call themselves Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, as opposed to 8 percent of blacks and 22 percent of Latinos. In 2012 New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait observed that white voters were all that stood between the Republican Party and “demographic extinction.”
The United States lags behind all industrialized nations when it comes to direct government funding of health care, family leave, child care, and unemployment benefits.
Some in the white working class are finally, belatedly, waking up to the issue of economic inequality and the fact that they’ve been sold out by the GOP.
January 8, 2013
I'm the only white person in my home, so I'm asked the title question or a variation of it -- particularly since we live in a very white and conservative area. I thought Ms. Walsh might have some insights to help me answer the questions posed by my children. The main trust of her book, however, is in the subtitle "why we long for a Golden Age that never was". She comes from an Irish Catholic family, a group that historically was the ire of "white Christian Americans", and the book takes for its framework the history/background of her Irish Catholic family in NYC. Ms. Walsh goes into great depths explaining the last 40 years of history of the Democratic and Republican parties which was incredibly informative. I now understand my late father's frequent comment, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me." Ms. Walsh goes into great detail explaining Democratic infighting as well as fights with Unions and the consequences of such actions. For these insights alone, Ms. Walsh's book is worth a read.
Her book is NOT inflammatory, even as much as her title seems to be. Actually much of what she means is not "why do white folks act like that" but is more "why aren't white people (particularly the white working class) included as a 'special interest group' within the Democratic Party". She discusses the success of the Republican party to woo the white working class by addressing and catering to their racial fears while at the same time dismantling the structures that have allowed white (immigrants and native born) workers to move into and stay within the middle class. She addresses the recent conservative and Republican attacks on these same folks, i.e. Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 and John Kasich and Scott Walker's union-busting attempts and comments made by Republican primary candidates -- unfortunately and obviously, Mitt Romney had not yet made his 47% comments and were not included.
She does not leave Democrats off the hook in her discussion and discusses they whys and hows of white folks, in general and working class in particular, being left out of the Democratic coalition, whether intentionally or unintentionally. However, this is the area her framework limits her discussion. Not all working class whites are union members, and the white working class is not a monolith. Likewise there is much political disagreement between union workers and non-unionized labor, skilled labor and non-skilled labor. Ms. Walsh also completely ignores the rise of Americanism and the coalition of Evangelical Christians with the Republican party. Unfortunately churches still preach the hurtful comments her mother endured in the last days of her life: Churches continue to preach politically for the Republican party and encourage single-issue voting. She briefly mentions this, but quickly brushes this aside. Honestly, I don't find it that easy to brush aside. We live in a majority-white, very conservative area, even white folks I know who currently receive government benefits such as Earned Income Tax Credit, unemployment benefits, Social Security, and Medicaid, sing the Republican party chorus and demonize the Democrats even after being told their vote could cause them to lose such benefits. I heard many on the left this past election cycle decry the working class for voting against its own economic interests and, like Ms. Walsh, believe the working class is unaware they are doing so. I do not believe they are unaware and in fact know they are voting against their own economic interests for various social issue and political reasons. As an aside, for those who vote "with purpose" against their economic interests I know well, they believe these economic losses "will not happen" and count on Democrats to keep the status quo in place. It will be interesting for me to listen to them next Presidential cycle, as the Democrats have said and shown recently that nothing is sacrosanct.
I walked away from the book thinking that Ms. Walsh has never met such people. I also came way knowing that Ms. Walsh does not have direct contact with whites who are overtly racist and/or who say they want "an All-white America" as my daughters were told over lunch at their high school just prior to the Presidential election this fall. When they pointed out to the speaker, who had been dating one of my girls at the time, that they were not "all-white" (they pass), he simply said "well both of you together make up one white person, so you can probably stay." It should come as no surprise to Ms. Walsh that the family had a huge 5' by 7' sign for Mitt Romney in their tiny suburban front yard. I wonder how many of these people can truly be reached, although I do agree with Ms. Walsh that we must try.
Addendum
I did like the fact that Ms. Walsh remembered that the US racial identity is not simply black and white but includes Latinos and Asian Americans. However, all day I have been thinking about her comments about Asian Americans. First, Asian Americans are NOT a monolith. "Asian American" is a disparate group that would not include themselves together, ie. Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Bangleshi Americans and Asian Indians would not consider themselves one group. Likewise the intermarriage rates she quotes are not for the individual groups, which varies considerably, although I do think she mentioned the intermarriage rates for Asian women are much higher than for Asian men. Additionally, what disturbed me most was her brief discussion of "Asian Americans as model miniority". Yes, Asian Americans are the most educated racial group, and Asian American median income may be greater than white median income. However, at the same educational attainment, Asian American income lags behind white income levels, that is Asian Americans as a group only appear to make more money because of how much more education they have than whites as a group.
Her book is NOT inflammatory, even as much as her title seems to be. Actually much of what she means is not "why do white folks act like that" but is more "why aren't white people (particularly the white working class) included as a 'special interest group' within the Democratic Party". She discusses the success of the Republican party to woo the white working class by addressing and catering to their racial fears while at the same time dismantling the structures that have allowed white (immigrants and native born) workers to move into and stay within the middle class. She addresses the recent conservative and Republican attacks on these same folks, i.e. Charles Murray's Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 and John Kasich and Scott Walker's union-busting attempts and comments made by Republican primary candidates -- unfortunately and obviously, Mitt Romney had not yet made his 47% comments and were not included.
She does not leave Democrats off the hook in her discussion and discusses they whys and hows of white folks, in general and working class in particular, being left out of the Democratic coalition, whether intentionally or unintentionally. However, this is the area her framework limits her discussion. Not all working class whites are union members, and the white working class is not a monolith. Likewise there is much political disagreement between union workers and non-unionized labor, skilled labor and non-skilled labor. Ms. Walsh also completely ignores the rise of Americanism and the coalition of Evangelical Christians with the Republican party. Unfortunately churches still preach the hurtful comments her mother endured in the last days of her life: Churches continue to preach politically for the Republican party and encourage single-issue voting. She briefly mentions this, but quickly brushes this aside. Honestly, I don't find it that easy to brush aside. We live in a majority-white, very conservative area, even white folks I know who currently receive government benefits such as Earned Income Tax Credit, unemployment benefits, Social Security, and Medicaid, sing the Republican party chorus and demonize the Democrats even after being told their vote could cause them to lose such benefits. I heard many on the left this past election cycle decry the working class for voting against its own economic interests and, like Ms. Walsh, believe the working class is unaware they are doing so. I do not believe they are unaware and in fact know they are voting against their own economic interests for various social issue and political reasons. As an aside, for those who vote "with purpose" against their economic interests I know well, they believe these economic losses "will not happen" and count on Democrats to keep the status quo in place. It will be interesting for me to listen to them next Presidential cycle, as the Democrats have said and shown recently that nothing is sacrosanct.
I walked away from the book thinking that Ms. Walsh has never met such people. I also came way knowing that Ms. Walsh does not have direct contact with whites who are overtly racist and/or who say they want "an All-white America" as my daughters were told over lunch at their high school just prior to the Presidential election this fall. When they pointed out to the speaker, who had been dating one of my girls at the time, that they were not "all-white" (they pass), he simply said "well both of you together make up one white person, so you can probably stay." It should come as no surprise to Ms. Walsh that the family had a huge 5' by 7' sign for Mitt Romney in their tiny suburban front yard. I wonder how many of these people can truly be reached, although I do agree with Ms. Walsh that we must try.
Addendum
I did like the fact that Ms. Walsh remembered that the US racial identity is not simply black and white but includes Latinos and Asian Americans. However, all day I have been thinking about her comments about Asian Americans. First, Asian Americans are NOT a monolith. "Asian American" is a disparate group that would not include themselves together, ie. Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Bangleshi Americans and Asian Indians would not consider themselves one group. Likewise the intermarriage rates she quotes are not for the individual groups, which varies considerably, although I do think she mentioned the intermarriage rates for Asian women are much higher than for Asian men. Additionally, what disturbed me most was her brief discussion of "Asian Americans as model miniority". Yes, Asian Americans are the most educated racial group, and Asian American median income may be greater than white median income. However, at the same educational attainment, Asian American income lags behind white income levels, that is Asian Americans as a group only appear to make more money because of how much more education they have than whites as a group.
September 20, 2019
Sadly, the tedium of most of this book had me ready to give it up altogether about a quarter of the way through. I finished it only by moving in a quick and cursory manner, pausing on a few parts that caught my attention. It was a very dry and overly-detailed recount of politics over the last forty to fifty years. Some parts of her upbringing were of interest, to include her personal perspective of some interesting and (now) lesser known points in history, e.g. the Hard Hat Riots. The dull and repetitive nature simply drove me to want to finish it as soon as possible. The author is learned and well-spoken, but not enough to keep my interest but, instead, forced me to ask, often, what the point was of the specific material I was reading. Several times I put it down and read something else, only to come back to it for another chapter or two as that was all I could tolerate in one sitting. Ultimately, I feel I’ve come away from it having learned little to nothing, and wishing I’d spent the time reading something else.
May 31, 2020
This book gave great insight about how being white is beneficial for upward mobility. Also how racially code language hold people emotionally hostage from being objective about the truth of a racial construct create by a few white men to maintain power over the majority people minds.
This book gave great insight about how just being white is beneficial for upward mobility. Also how racially code language hold people emotionally hostage from being objective about the truth of a racial construct create by a few white men to maintain power over the majority people minds.
This book gave great insight about how just being white is beneficial for upward mobility. Also how racially code language hold people emotionally hostage from being objective about the truth of a racial construct create by a few white men to maintain power over the majority people minds.
December 10, 2017
Sprawling and eccentric, the author looks at the quest for the perceived utopia, and the urgency to hold on to the dream, of a time that never really was in America. Peering through the looking glass of her own extended family she explores how the politics in America, has shaped the attitudes and divided the classes, and masses by the haves, and have-not and developed the us versus them mentality.
September 17, 2018
My takeaway quote: "I am repeatedly struck by the extent to which conservatives have given up on the America we all grew up with: apparently it costs too much and we can't afford it, and besides, we can't all get along, so we can't enjoy it ... As the right loses faith in the America we grew up with, it gives the rest of us an opportunity and a clear responsibility ... We have to be the ones who develop a version of the American Dream that works for everyone."
January 1, 2021
I believe there’s a lot wrong with this book, specifically her thoughts on racism. I agree with her thoughts about the 1% and wealth in this country. Also, I didn’t realize I was essentially reading a memoir which wasn’t what I thought this was. And the title is misleading.
November 5, 2017
Sadly prescient. I wish there was more to the conclusion. I’ll have to look to see if she’s written more in light of the 2016 election.
August 3, 2019
Learning a white and mostly liberal perspective. Also discussed Irish vs African-American people
January 16, 2021
Excellent account of Democrats losses last 50 yrs
February 29, 2024
4.5 stars....this was a good read on the Obama years....everyone should read Chapter 25, the summary....
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