“If we define ‘working class’ simply as not having a college degree, then fully three-quarters [or at least two-thirds] of all Americans are working-class. 'Class', however, is defined not in terms of income or degrees but in terms of power. Especially regarding labor. If you define “working class” in terms of power – bosses who have it and workers who don’t – at least 60 percent of America is working class, and the true middle class – the journalists, professionals and semiprofessionals, people in the management class, etc. – are not more than one-third at best.”Among the Democratic candidates for president, there is one person who speaks for this vast, long-suffering working class, this beating heart of America: Bernie Sanders. Whether or not all his legislative goals are achievable in the short term, he is the one fighting most aggressively for the interests of workers. It is hard to argue, after all, that his proposals for “workplace democracy,” the cancellation of student debt, tuition-free higher education, a federal jobs guarantee, aggressive action to combat climate change, Medicare for All, and so on are against the interests of the large majority of Americans. So what does it mean to say, as so many do, that he is unelectable?
-- Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War
-- Chris Wright
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