This is one of the disconnects that keeps progressive movements on the margins. My guess is that there are millions of people like the low-wage workers and the ex-marines who don’t need to be enlightened about
injustice. But very few would have anything to do with current social change movements, and under most circumstances would keep their distance from the apparently educated and articulate elite that seem to determine the
anti-establishment agenda….Even if I discovered significant disagreement on issues I really care about, that should not impede my efforts to build alliances and work in coalitions with [working class poor] people. After all, my
disagreements with the engineers of [working class people]’s fate–the managers, bosses, legislators, and assorted other middle-class professionals–are
at least as significant, yet I am part of an anti-war movement that
never gives up courting them. There are possibly millions and millions of people whose trust of us will not climb along with the New York Times’s, but in fact is probably inversely related. We don’t need credibility from institutions that safeguard elite interests. We need credibility from the legions of people that have already given up on these institutions. Their numbers
are growing. Are we talking to them? More importantly, are we listening?
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