I do think that Democrats and via that association Hillary Clinton did ignore “the Working Class” (read Thomas Frank’s Listen Liberal) but this article makes some great points.
The more frightening possibility for liberals is that Clinton didn’t lose because the white working class failed to hear her message, but precisely because they did hear it.
Trump’s white voters do support the mommy state, but only so long as it’s mothering them. Most of them don’t seem eager to change Medicare or Social Security, but they’re fine with repealing Obamacare and its more diverse pool of 20 million insured people. They’re happy for the government to pick winners and losers, so long as beleaguered coal and manufacturing companies are in the winner’s circle. Massive deficit-financed spending on infrastructure? Under Obama, that was dangerous government overreach, but under Trump, it’s a jobs plan by a guy they know won’t let Muslims and Mexicans cut in line to get work renovating highways and airports.
The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
To many white Trump voters, the problem wasn’t her economic stance, but the larger vision-a multi-ethnic social democracy-that it was a part of.