Take the Lead - Follow the Populists

Over the course of our baby boomer lives, "race" (socio-cultural reality, scientific-biological falsehood) and education (as measured by degrees or lack thereof) have replaced class (also now often measured by formal education) as chief predictors of party allegiance. Thus guidelines for increasingly blatant gerrymandering.

Partly because class has become less "classical." More service and agricultural, less unionized, not the mining and factory jobs many of my male relatives got coming out of Kentucky and Texas, two "border states." I remember only one close relative who had obtained a high-school diploma, my Kentucky aunt, who "taught school" on the strength of that. And had married a man with a high-status working-class job as a skilled locomotive mechanic. Ironically, none of their children achieved that status or higher as far as I have been able to discern. 

There are all kinds of low paid, hard-to-organized jobs now, some requiring high levels of literacy and certification. Why my lonely voice pushes for a more one big union approach. I was a member of a union during my time as a full-time community college teacher, but it never represented me on the job. My father had been betrayed by the Steelworker leaders and had lost his job in the wake of the last big steel strike about 1961.

It is far easier now to categorize people by race than by class. You can more or less "see" race and gender. When I know nothing of a candidate but a name that suggests ethnicity or gender, vote for the person of a historically oppressed identity. I also have talked to many people of those  historically oppressed identities who have voted for Trump etc. Wrong, but not "evil." Latinos seem to be the "swing voters" in this regard. Less predictable, weaker ethnic identity loyalty. 

I am hoping this year will surprise us in not being so predictable, at least among "statistical" Republicans. Most people are doing worse economically. More materially left candidates. Education less a predictor of job and financial security. Unionization greater among the formally educated, the academic.

Class (in the murkier form of economic insecurity) may be emerging again as the chief predictor of party voting. Lots of indication the emerging Senate, not just the House, will be more New Deal-Al Sayed, Platner, Talarico.  

The Populists put forward a third party to challenge the undisguised racism of the Democratic Party of late 19th and early 20th century, which actively suppressed the Black vote and the poor white vote via Jim Crow rules, poll taxes, and vigilante intimidation. The Populists had a plank in 1892 that radically demanded a private ballot. Think about that. 

We now have a "just in case" third party, the WFP. A mirror image of the Populist period?

These and other related considerations need to be factored in.

Voting is harder and less appealing the further down the money ladder you reside, regardless of historical identity. In fact, it looks like the ladder ends just above your head. 

The same rules that have both racist intention and effect also work to exclude poor people of all identities. We should be for comprehensive voting rights for all. Voting should be easy for all citizens. Everyone gets a mail ballot as in my home state of Washington. Many opportunities to vote in person etcetera.

That is the next necessary step and we should take the vanguard on that one. So in a sense, I am a "vanguardist" after all.

Paul Rowe May 13, 2026