, Columnist
Working Class Has the Blues, and Elites Lack Answers
Those on the lower economic rungs aren't a monolithic group. That makes it tough to devise coherent policies.
It worked once.
Photographer: Russell Lee/Library of CongressThis article is for subscribers only.
With Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, there's a widespread belief that populism is on the rise in the developed world. Writers and thinkers darkly warn of a crisis if elites don’t accede to the demands -- explicit or assumed -- of the working class.
As I wrote in a previous post, it’s very hard to define whom to consider part of the elite. That makes it difficult to establish a target for popular anger, and it means that no one knows who, exactly, is expected to respond to the masses’ demands. But there’s another, related problem I didn’t talk about: Who is making the demands? Who are these working-class people who have been wronged by the system and aren’t going to take it anymore?